


Playing Pretend

by BestWishes



Category: Digimon, Digimon - All Media Types, Digimon Adventure, Digimon Adventure tri.
Genre: Angst, COVID-19, Eating Disorders, M/M, Past Rape/Non-con, Porn with Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:41:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26455060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BestWishes/pseuds/BestWishes
Summary: "It starts just over a month into quarantine, with a trashy action movie and a pitcher of margaritas."
Relationships: Ishida Yamato | Matt Ishida & Yagami Taichi | Tai Kamiya, Ishida Yamato | Matt Ishida/Yagami Taichi | Tai Kamiya
Comments: 49
Kudos: 108





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Eep, it's my first time posting fanfic in *years* - please be kind! o.o'

It starts just over a month into quarantine, with a trashy action movie and a pitcher of margaritas.

“I’m not a good enough quarandate?” Taichi pouts when he sees me on my phone, his voice slurring. I try to count the number of glasses he’s had tonight through the blurriness in my own head. We’ve been drinking too much, probably, but considering this is the first worldwide catastrophe in our lifetime that Taichi couldn’t shoot fireballs at, I’m just grateful he’s been staying inside.

I’m still counting when his torso lands in my lap, knocking my phone to the floor.

“Taichi,” I huff, but he just wraps his arms around my waist and whines dramatically into my stomach.

“Oh my god, I miss people.”

“Yagami,” I flick the back of his head like the shape of his chest isn’t pressed into the tops of my thighs, like I’m not incredibly aware of every square inch of where our bodies are touching.

“Do you remember when we used to see people who weren’t on screens? I don’t even think I do.” His breath is warm on my stomach, and it prickles all the way through my hips. It’s been way too fucking long since I’ve gotten laid for this.

“You just miss getting blown,” I try to irritate him, to make him pull away, but he just chuckles.

“I’m not the one trying to find a virtual one night stand.”

“Who says he’ll be a one night stand?"

“They’re always one night stands, Ishida,” he says, and I can hear him rolling his eyes. I open my mouth to argue, but he rolls across me to fish my phone from the floor, and I can feel the shape of his toned bicep against my leg. “Here, let me help.” He twists around onto his back, and his thumbs are already swiping at the screen before I can recover from another wave of his warm body in my lap.  


“Tai!” I snap, making a grab for the phone, but he just giggles and throws his weight back to the other side of the couch, forcing me to crawl over his legs before I can reclaim the device. “What the hell are you doing?” I settle back on my ankles and look down at the profile photo he has pulled up on screen: a slim blonde man in a soft-looking brown cardigan that brings out his hazel eyes smiles up at me. He looks nice. I swipe left quickly.

"What was wrong with him?" Tai pouts up at me.

"Nothing's wrong with him; he wasn't my type."

"So your type is guys who aren’t handsome and creative and successful?” Tai gestures up at the phone in my hand. “He's only twenty seven, and he's a curator at a museum even I know the name of. Who the hell do you like?" I avoid the question without quite lying.

"I’m not into blondes."

"You're blonde."

"I'm sorry that I'm not a complete narcissist. Why are you getting weird about this?"

"I'm not getting weird. He's just good-looking and seems nice and-"

"So you date him, Tai." He furrows his brow for a moment before tackling me back into my seat, his arms around my waist again and mumbling something along the lines of "don’t have to be mean” and “just trying to help."

“Dumbass,” I complain, but I give in and let my hands fall into his hair, massaging his scalp. He closes his eyes and relaxes into me again, like a puppy getting a tummy rub. “You’re such a baby.”

“You like it,” he murmurs, and I feel his hands slip below my shirt behind my back, tracing circles into my skin. My face flushes, and I wonder again exactly how drunk he is.

“Really? Because I thought I found it obnoxious and codependent.” He just giggles again.

“No, you get quiet when you’re pissed off. You’re only an asshole when you like something and don’t want other people to know it.” I don’t answer, and he smiles again. “See? Now you’re pissed off. Because I know you like it. It’s kinda cute,” he adds, “but also like super inconvenient.” I try not to hear it, try not to feel his thumbs tracing patterns on my waist. I try not to let my hands wander from his hair to his shoulders, warm and strong just below a thin tee shirt, but I do.

“You’re an idiot when you’re drunk.”

None of this is new. It’s been both the best and worst part of living with him the past four years, the way he gets stupid and cuddly when he’s lonely, how real it feels, for a few moments.

“How’d you know you didn’t like girls?” That is new, and I instinctively start to bristle, but he catches the tension in my body before I can open my mouth. “No. No, I’m sorry; I didn’t mean it like that.” He releases my waist and meets my eyes, wide brown eyes soft and apologetic and a little bleary from the margaritas.

Those fucking eyes.

“I know that’s, like, a thing people ask when they’re trying to be homophobic dickheads, but,” his eyebrows knit again, and there’s something’s strange about the way he’s talking, an uncharacteristic self-consciousness in his voice, “people always say ‘well, how do you know you’re straight,’ right? And like, sure, fuck them for being such assholes, but is that really something that...” I’m holding my breath, I realize, but my lungs won’t seem to take the note.

“Not everyone just knows, Chi,” I suggest as softly as I can, and I catch a touch of pink in his eyes before he squeezes them shut.

“But.” His dark eyebrows knit, like he needs to concentrate on the words. “If you know you like some people, and then you think you might… and you’re wrong, then won’t you just look like an asshat? And if it feels like you're wrong but it’s just the wrong person or I’m just too nervous about being wrong to even…” He seems to notice that his pronouns have slipped and clenches his jaw.

“You’re not going to look like an asshat, Tai. You just have to find someone you can experiment with without worrying about committing to anything. Someone who won’t mind if it turns out you’re straight.”

I could say that I was drunk. Or delusionally horny from a month without even the idea of sex. Or that his eyes were wet and terrified when he blinked them open at me, that I had never really been able to say no to those eyes from the first moment I saw them.

I could say that, and it would all be true, but it’s still a terrible excuse for what comes out of my mouth next: “It’d be like making out with me.”

His eyebrows knit again.

“With you?” I nearly wince at the sting of the question.

“Jesus, ‘Chi; I thought you were the one trying to sell me on blondes.”

“No - I didn’t mean; I just,” he scrambles, sitting up sharply and rubbing at his eyes. “You don’t think it would be... awkward?”

The myriad of ways this can and probably will fuck me up do flash briefly through my brain. But, I reason through the fog of tequila and what can only be masochism, if I'm going to be Yagami's bitch either way, and history suggests I definitely am, I might as well get to touch him. So I shrug. I shug at the boy I've been in love with since the fifth grade. The boy who might not just like girls.

"It’s not like I can hook up with anyone else right now."

He gives a measured look that probably would have had more impact if he wasn't visibly off-balance, and then he kisses me.

He’s warm and strong against me, the same as he always was when he tackled me to the ground, his hands hot where they’re cupping my jawline, but he’s gentle in a way I don’t expect, almost like he’s afraid I’ll pull away. I don’t, of course; I very nearly melt into him, very nearly lick the lime juice and sugar off his lips. He’s in my lap again, and my hands find his waist, brushing over the firm stretch of muscle below his shirt. He hasn’t shaved in a few days, and the stubble scratches my lips in a way that makes my breathing hitch even before his tongue swipes cautiously against mine, even before I let my jaw go soft for him, before I press my tongue deep into his mouth and my thumbs into the soft spots on the inside edges of his hip bones and he whines and sucks hard on my neck.

“If it’s too awkward, we can try to find you that artist guy again,” I tease softly some time later, pinned flat on the couch by his weight, his sleepy lips pressing intermittently to my neck, my jaw, my ear. I try not to sound like I’m holding my breath for an answer. He laughs a little and cuddles up around me the way he always does when he’s drunk, hair tickling my face, like nothing’s changed. Because it hasn’t; because it’s just pretend.

It's just pretend.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for discussion of weight, disordered eating, & past non-con this chapter - please take care of yourselves!

“All right, let’s see how bad your hair is." You can't say my manager ever wastes any time. He squints at the camera for a second. “Hair up whenever you’re outside that apartment. What are you weighing in at?” I tighten my jaw and give him the number, tensing my stomach instinctively to disguise the weight I know I’ve put on since being at home. “Damn it, Ishida, the camera’s going to add ten pounds without your help. Lose fifteen. Okay?” he adds sharply when I keep my jaw locked.

“Okay.”

“Be online fifteen minutes early for sound check, and then you’ll have forty five. Have another song by then. Nothing sad. Everyone’s sad enough. Questions?” I shake my head. “Smile more during the show, Ishida. See you then.”

“Is he always that charming?” Tai nearly growls as I wander into the kitchen, where he’s alternating between twirling a fork in a cup of instant ramen and sipping at something with a slice of lemon in it. Both activities are giving his forearms entirely too much to do, muscles tensing and releasing under all that warm, tan skin. Too much skin, because he’s wearing slim-fitting jeans and a ratty white tank top that hugs every curve of his torso; he must be out of tee shirts.

I catch myself wondering if I could get away with offering to do his laundry, imagining mixing our clothes together and using his detergent so mine comes out smelling like him. And to think I might have gone my whole life without knowing that Five Weeks of Quarantine Yamato is so pathetic he’s literally turned on by the idea of his roommate’s dirty clothes.

“You should see him on a bad day,” I hop onto the counter beside the cup of noodles and steal a swig from his glass. “Oh my god, Yagami,” I choke out as my throat burns.

“It’s a whiskey smash! But we didn’t have any mint.”

“So it’s bourbon and lemon juice?”

“And simple syrup,” he adds defensively.

“Classy,” I tease but take another sip, trying not to show I notice when his eyes dart to the Taichi-width gap I’ve let form between my knees. This is how it usually starts, whatever this is we’ve been doing for a week. One of us makes drinks, and the other makes space.

“You’re trying to distract me,” he frowns but drops his fork to step between my legs, palms settling on the tops of my thighs. I raise my eyebrows innocently.

“Am I?” I lean my forehead down to rest on his, like it’s just a game, like my head isn’t already buzzing a little though I can’t possibly be drunk yet. I give him my best roguish smirk. “Is it working?” He pushes up onto his toes, fingers drifting excruciatingly slowly up my legs, and I can feel my mouth watering at the misty warmth of his breath, my skin prickling, but his lips stop just short of mine.

“Almost.” I shove lightly at his shoulders, and he takes a few steps back as he falls back onto his heels, dropping his hands, frowning a little as he lands with his back against our fridge.

“I’m fine, Chi.” It comes out a little sharper than I mean it to be, his absence stinging through my bones. “It’s his job to be critical.” His jaw tightens again as he picks his noodles back up.

“Have you really just gained that weight?” Heat rushes up the back of my neck, nausea pooling in my throat. I slide off the countertop to avoid meeting his eyes.

“Yeah, I mean, probably five pounds since everything went to shit?” I tense again, trying to make myself smaller. “Working on my quarantine fifteen.” The tone I hoped would read as dry humor must not be convincing, because the lines between his eyebrows only deepen.

“You know that even with those five pounds, you’re only at like absolute bottom-line BMI for your height, right? And BMI is bullshit to begin with,” he waves his fork at me for emphasis, “so you’re probably still underweight. If you knock another fifteen off-”

“And here I thought you hated math,” I roll my eyes at him as I steal another sip of his drink.

“I have half the table memorized from managing the team exercise and diet routines,” he explains, “and this isn’t a joke.” His voice is doing the growly thing again. I imagine him saying my name that way, imagine his breath on the back of my neck as he bends me over the crappy vinyl countertop. It almost distracts me from feeling every cell of fat on my body vibrating with shame. Almost.

“I used to weigh a lot less.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” I let out a breath.

“It isn’t supposed to make you feel anything, Taichi; it’s just part of my job: people like their lead singers pretty and happy and single.”

“You’re always pretty,” he grumbles through another bite of ramen, and I try to ignore the ensuing tug in my gut. “I like my lead singers not immunocompromised in the middle of a pandemic.” He blinks up at me suddenly. “Wait, is that why they’re all one-night stands?”

“Because I’m immunocompromised?” I grin. He doesn’t.

“Because that dickhead wouldn’t like you having a boyfriend.” I breathe out a laugh, buying myself a moment to find an answer he might be able to stomach.

“I don’t have a boyfriend because I’m a slut, Taichi.” It’s still too much. He gets that look on his face that means he’s about to say something serious, so I knock back the last gulp of the bourbon and lean my shoulder into his. “You know what my manager really wouldn’t like?” I let my voice drop low and hook my fingers in the front of his slinky tank top. “You.” I expect him to push me away, but he doesn’t. He lets me pull him to my lips, softening his jaw and finding the back of my neck with his hand, pressing our mouths deeper together. And I melt, again. Because I have no fucking self-control to speak of.

I hear the paper cup as he sets it on the counter, and then he’s dipping his face into my skin, kissing a line up my neck, sucking hard at the vulnerable spot right below my jaw, and I hear myself swear, feel him smile. Five Weeks of Quarantine Yamato is an idiot.

We stumble to the living room couch, where it’s become clear I’ll never be able to sit again without thinking about how his tongue feels in my mouth, and I let him pull me into his lap, let him run his warm hands over my legs, my ass, until I’m aching for him.

“You know,” he breathes heavily into my ear and then pauses to suck hard on my earlobe, “what he really, really wouldn’t like?” I nip at his collarbone in retaliation, but he hooks his hands behind my knees and pulls, crashing our hips together so that I can feel him hard against me through our jeans. He swears this time, and moans when I roll my hips into him, his forehead landing on my shoulder. “God, Ishida.”

“What’s that?” I ask in his ear, letting my lips trail against his skin.

“If you taught me to give head,” he whispers, and his hand brushes softly across the front of my jeans.

My chest seizes painfully, panic pooling in my stomach, but I knew this was coming, and it’s Tai, and I’m drunk enough, I think. And it’s Tai. My hands fall obediently to the button on his jeans and tug sharply at the zipper.

“What are you doing?” The lusty haze drops from his voice, replaced by a sharp confusion that I don’t understand.

“I’m going down on you.”

“Right. I got that, but you obviously don’t want to.” I shake my head and slip my hand down the front of his pants, over the soft cotton of navy boxers. He’s so hard I can feel my own dick twitch, lust mingling with the anxiety in my gut.

“It’s fine, Tai.” He grabs my wrist sharply.

“Jesus, would you look at me?” I don’t realize that I’m not until he says it.

“What?” He gives me a look like it’s obvious, like I’m being an idiot.

“What do you mean what? I just asked if I could go down on you, and instead of just saying no, you’ve decided you’re going to compete for the title of World’s Least Enthusiastic Blow Job.” I stiffen.

“You were asking to go down on me?”

“What else would I be asking?”

“Oh.” There’s a half an inch of space between his lips, like he’s trying to decide how to say something gently.

“We don’t have to do any of this if you don’t-”

“No. No, that’s not...” I didn’t know stammering was a thing I did, but I suddenly can’t seem to make it to the end of a sentence. “I thought you were- I mean, you’ve seen my press coverage,” I land weakly, too embarrassed to say the truth out loud. He frowns up at me.

“No, I haven’t.” I give a self-deprecating smile and roll my eyes, trying to cover the sting at the thought of him in a convenience store checkout line, surrounded by photos of me on my knees in the green room or stumbling into a taxi with two guys I’ve never met.

“It’s fine; everyone’s seen it, Tai. I’m pretty sure Mimi has a scrapbook.” He shakes his head.

“I run in circles kicking balls into nets all day, Matt. I’m basically illiterate.” He isn’t lying, I realize with a start, and for some reason that makes it hurt worse.

“Well, the TLDR is that I’ll let literally anyone fuck me, okay?” His eyes dim a little, but he shakes his head.

“I don’t understand.” I don’t want to have this conversation anymore. I don’t want to say that he’s the first guy who’s bothered to just kiss me in what feels like forever. I don’t want to tell him that the guys I sleep with don’t go down on me, that they definitely don’t ask before they push me to my knees on the bathroom floor. I squeeze my eyes shut for a second and then lean back into him, letting my nose bump his.

“It’s nothing, Chi. Can we just... start over?”

“You’re still upset.”

“Do I look upset?” I murmur against his lips, slipping my hands under his shirt, tracing circles onto his stomach with my thumbs, but his jaw stays stubbornly set.

“Yeah, you do.”

“Jesus, Yagami, it was easier when you just hit me.” I brush my fingers further up his chest and remember the way he used to pin me into the dirt, his body warm and heavy on mine. The look in his eyes is the same now, like he wants to save me from myself, like he doesn't know how.

“That’s not funny.”

“Because it wasn’t a joke,” I murmur into his skin before sucking hard on the spot where his neck meets his shoulder. He shudders, and I can feel his hips tense, like they want to move.

“Yama.” I need him to stop talking. To stop caring. To touch me again and make me forget it’s not real.

“I used to say the worst things I could think of just so you’d do it.”

“That’s exactly-”

“Shut _up_ , Yagami,” I whine as I grind down on him, letting my voice catch, and he does, for a moment, biting his lip despite himself in a way that makes me want to bite it for him. “I didn’t want you to hit me because it’d hurt. I wanted you to hit me because it was the only way to get you to touch me again.” He softens slightly, cautious.

“Is that true?”

“Yeah,” I say, and it is, and I definitely shouldn’t have said it out loud. He catches the back of my head in his hand, guiding my eyes to his, dark and searching, like he’s looking for something.

“I don’t want it to be like that now.” His fingertips are rubbing gently at my hairline as he says it, sending goosebumps up the nape of my neck. “I hate that I did that stuff to you.” He says it the same way I did, like it’s been on the tip of his tongue for years. And it’s true, too, judging from the glassy shine at the corners of his eyes.

“It isn’t,” I answer, my voice more certain than I feel. “I’m sorry. Try again. Please.” He hesitates for a moment before tipping his forehead into mine.

“You know what he really wouldn’t like?”

“If we got each other off?” I suggest, my voice low, and he really does growl this time, as he dives for my mouth, presses in deep and hot. I pull his hands off my waist and towards the front of my jeans, letting his fingers fumble over the zipper as I rub gently at him through his boxers again.

“Okay?” he asks, voice strained, when he has my jeans tugged halfway down my hips, his strong hands gripping my ass in a way that makes me think about the other things I usually let guys do to me.

“Okay,” I confirm into his neck, and he pulls me up off his lap to hook his thumbs into the waistband of my boxer briefs and drag them down my thighs as I slip my own hands down the front of his boxers. He’s slightly thicker than me, and his skin is hotter, both under my hand and wrapped around me, his fingers softer without the guitar-string calluses. I think about how they used to wrap around my wrists and pin me to the wall, how this feels both exactly the same and completely different.

“God, Ishida.” I take his free hand in mine and run the flat of my tongue across his palm at the same time swipe my thumb across his crown. He whimpers and shifts us closer, pressing our lengths together, and I guide his slick hand around us. "Fuck," he swears this time, and I brush his hair out of his face, so I can see his eyes, dark with lust. He twists his face into my palm, lapping at my skin with his tongue like he’s desperate for it until I'm wet too. I use my hand to make up the difference around us, tangling our fingers so I can guide him as we start to move.

Later, I think about how the sounds he makes will fuel my wet dreams for years, how I’ll definitely have to destroy this couch when this is all over, but in the moment, it’s all a rush of sensation: his body hot against mine, our breath ragged between us, his whines muffled weakly by my neck, where he’s pressing his face, his mouth, his teeth. He comes first, with a kind of choked sob against my skin that makes me follow hard, and I press open-mouthed kisses over his temple as he rides out the aftershocks.

"Here," he catches my hand before I can slip from his lap. "My clothes are shit anyway," he explains as he uses the edge of his shirt to wipe the sticky liquid from my palm. “I didn’t ruin yours?” I barely glance at my own shirt before shaking my head.

”I have to do laundry.” The worn cotton is soft on my skin, and I can feel my cheeks burning at the attention even before he pulls the fabric up over his head and pulls me into his bare chest, tangling our legs together as he pulls me down onto the couch. Even before he trails his fingertips over my arm. Even before he nestles his face into the back of my neck.

“You know, I’ve been thinking, and you might be bi, Chi,” I tease him when it feels too real, too much like it could stay this way, and he snorts a laugh into my skin, then presses his mouth into the same spot.

“I’ve been thinking, and your manager might be a fucking asshole.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Continued CW for disordered eating, my friends!

The first time we're not drunk, I'm on my bedroom floor, trying to work on the lyrics for the Not Too Sad song but actually experimenting with melodies for the Definitely Too Sad song I've written instead.

"I like that," he says as he sits beside me on the carpet, tucking his feet under him so one knee brushes my arm. His hair is damp from showering after his workout, which makes me think about both Workout Taichi and Shower Taichi, and I’m not sure which is worse.

He leans his head back to rest on my mattress behind us and listens as I play through the rest of the chords, and I try not to imagine burying my face in the soft stretch of his neck, my back pressed against the cool wet tile of our shower wall, my legs around his hips as he fucks me. I really try. He nudges the edge of my guitar with his elbow when my hands go still, his eyes still closed.

"Is that the new song? Are there words?"

“It’s not finished.”

“Are there unfinished words?” he smiles, blinking his eyes open, then catches sight of the notebook at my feet. “Is that them?” He reaches down, but I stretch my leg out to block him. He makes a face.

“They’re not done,” I offer as explanation as I pull my guitar strap off my shoulders and set the instrument aside, “and it’s too sad, anyway.”

“I like the sad ones.” I roll my eyes as I reach down to close the notebook.

“I know you do.” He pouts as he lands next to me again, splaying his legs out in front of him, parallel to mine, both our bodies striped with sunlight coming in through half-closed blinds.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you like your damsels in distress.” He frowns.

“That’s not true.” I nearly snort.

“You’ve had a hero complex since grade school, Tai.” His jaw tightens, but I smile and bump his shoulder with mine. “It’s fine; it’s why you’re so good at it.”

“I don’t think you need rescuing.”

“You’ve _accidentally_ made double portions of your dinner every night this week, Chi.” His face flushes, but the embarrassing thing is that I’ve finished every one of them, that I’ve barely even hesitated each time he’s poked his head into my room, his expression velvet soft and gut-wrenchingly hopeful, a full bowl of “leftovers” in his hands. That I’ve let him watch me eat it all, let him sprawl out over my mattress with his laptop and steal glances at me taking slow, small bites between typing paragraphs of end of semester papers.

The embarrassing thing is that I’ve done the dishes every night, just because I know that he’ll follow me to the kitchen, that he’ll nuzzle his nose into the back of my neck and rub circles into the small of my back as I do. Just because I know that I’ll complain and shove him away with my elbows, and I know that he’ll throw his arms around my shoulders in revenge, pressing his lips into my spine, my hips into the edge of the countertop. Because I know he’ll tell he’ll do them in the morning, that there are better things my hands could be doing.

“I’m... terrible at cooking.”

“And lying.” His shoulder is so close to mine I can feel the heat of it. I think about how it’d feel to lean against him there, how his nose could tip into the crown of my head, how I could feel his breath on my scalp.

“I don’t like the sad songs because they’re sad,” he disagrees gently. I can almost feel his eyes on my face as I drop my own gaze to my hands, picking at a few flecks of old nail polish on my thumb. “You just let your guard down a little, for the quiet ones. It's nice to get to hear you that way.” I don’t know what to say to that, but he just bumps his foot into mine on the rug and keeps talking, his voice low.

“You know that made me so crazy, when we were kids? That I could never figure out what you were thinking, that you wouldn’t just tell me. And then that first time you played that harmonica, it was like everything made sense, like I could finally hear the way you just _felt everything_ all the time. I was just this stupid, loud kid who didn’t know how to feel anything without basically exploding, and you... you were just so fucking smart and empathetic and noticed everything, and you never felt less than sixteen things at once about anything because you were always playing out every possible scenario in your head, what it might mean for all the people you cared about. It was like magic.

“It still feels like that, sometimes, like I’m stumbling around in the dark, and you’ve got this whole universe inside you.” I’m holding my breath, I realize, my chest warm and tight. I force a weak smirk onto my lips.

“I bet you tell all the girls how beautiful you think their neuroses are,” I say it like it’s a joke, like I’m not really afraid that it’s true, but I’m still scratching at my nail where there’s no polish left, and my stomach tight and sick, the same way it’s felt every night this week, when I’m back in my bed without him, counting calories and imagining the food in my stomach morphing into fat cells, settling onto my thighs. His hand lands on top of mine, stilling my fingers, and I turn my head.

Every edge of him is crisp in the daylight, without the blur of alcohol: the spray of cinnamon sugar freckles he gets from the sun, the ridiculously dark eyelashes framing unfairly pretty brown eyes, the quiet lilt of his voice. I didn’t know he could be this quiet.

“How beautiful I think you are,” he corrects, then smiles a little, the corners of his eyes crinkling, “and maybe a little neurotic.”

I kiss him, there on the ugly brown carpet; I cup his jawline and press deep into his mouth, and he makes the softest sound in the back of his throat, and he kisses me back. I kiss him, and his hands tangle in my hair, his fingertips massaging gently at my scalp, sending shivers down the back of my neck despite the warm sunlight coming through the window. I kiss him, and he shifts quietly into my lap, dropping his lips to my throat as I trace the shape of his legs around me with my palms, every soft ridge of denim warm with the heat of him.

I feel my hips lift instinctively, searching for friction, and he catches the top of my thigh, the softest spot, just below my ass, to squeeze me closer as he grinds down into me. I clutch at his waist and and hear myself whine as he presses my shoulders back into the side of my mattress, leveraging himself closer, sucking so hard at my neck that the ache of it echoes sharp and hot everywhere our bodies are touching.

“Fuck, Yagami.”

"I want you to come in my mouth. He whispers it into my jawline, and I blink my eyes open in surprise. "Is that... okay?" There’s a nervous edge to his voice, and his eyes are muddy with worry, his brows furrowing.

"Obviously yes, Chi." I try to sound annoyed by the question, to cover how desperate I feel, but I can feel his grin against my lips as he smiles, can see the sunshine flashing in his eyes, like I’m the one who’s given him something. And then my body is back on the ground, and he's slotting between my legs, his mouth and hands exploring my hips, my waist, my stomach. He drifts lower slowly, brushing his lips softly over the crotch of my jeans, pausing, like he’s waiting for me to go tense the way I did the other night, but I don’t.

I find his hands and guide them to my fly, and I arch my back as he mouths softly at the thin cotton of my underwear like he’s hungry for it, for me, gritting my teeth to hold back a moan. And he must notice, because his palm lands on my hand, gripping at the carpet, and his fingertips rub gently at my knuckles.

“You can let your guard down, beautiful,” he murmurs, and my hips ache at the damp heat of it, “like the quiet songs. I won’t look up, if you don’t want.” And maybe it’s the way he says _beautiful_ , like it’s easy, like it’s true, but I let myself breathe out a soft, hurt sound that should be embarrassing but only seems to make him drag his bottom lip up over me again, slow and hot.

Fuck the couch. I’m just going to have to move apartments when this is all over.

He must have googled this, I think as he finally tugs the rest of the fabric down my hips and begins lavishing slow, wet strokes of his tongue over me. I want to ask him if he watched someone do it, if he practiced, if he imagined anyone while he did, but then he takes me into his mouth, and there’s only the wet, tight heat of him and the sound of me swearing and the cool moisture of his damp hair between my fingers.

I don’t bite my lip again when he starts to bob his head, finding a rhythm, or when he wraps his hand around the rest of me, and I can hear the stream of mortifying noises I’m making: the gasps and whines and curses, but he only seems to grow more enthusiastic at each sound. There’s barely an ounce of pressure behind my fingers as I start to guide him, but he responds immediately, following every slight tug and press my hands, like I could do anything in the world to him, like he’d let me play him like an instrument. I shudder at the thought, and then I feel his body shift between my legs, and my eyes flutter open to catch him fumbling at his own jeans with one hand, dipping into the front of his boxers and starting to move at pace with his mouth, still wrapped around my dick, and the sight of it all sends a rush of heat through my hips.

“Yagami, I’m-” I force my fingers to release his hair, so he can pull away if he wants to, but he doesn’t, and I have to clutch at him as the waves of pleasure crash over me. And I can feel the movement of his hips rutting down into his own hand, the tension building in his shoulders, between my legs, the working of his warm throat swallowing my come, the heat of his breath as my cock muffles the sound of his own orgasm, and then our bodies are both soft and heavy and sinking into the awful carpet.

Quietly, he tips out of my lap to reach the box of tissues on my bedside table, and I pull my jeans back up before he rolls back to my side and leans in to rest his against my shoulder, the same as I’d wanted to do to him earlier. I tuck my nose into the crown of his head and catch the scent of his hair, a familiar jasmine.

“Did you use my shampoo?”

“It smells... nice. Like you,” he adds, and I can see the tops of his ears flushing red, can picture him thinking about me while he takes a shower, while he… His fingers weave together with mine resting in my lap, and he squeezes gently, and I feel myself squeeze back.

Shit.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your kind comments! I'm sorry about the wait on this chapter - it has me a little extra nervous!

**Yamato** : Yamato shared a Google Doc with you! **Untitled document**

 **Taichi** : Um hi? What is this?

 **Taichi** : Is everything okay?

 **Yamato** : it’s the articles.

 **Yamato** : about me

 **Yamato** : if you want to read them.

 **Taichi** : Do you want me to?

 **Yamato** : it doesn't matter

 **Yamato** : but you don't have to feel bad if you want to know

 **Yamato** : or if you don't want to do things anymore once you do.

 **Taichi** : I have to share a bathroom with your hair products. I don't think there's anything worse out there. ;)

 **Taichi** : Seriously though I'll read them if there's some reason you want me to but otherwise I really don't care what some trashy magazine says about you.

 **Taichi** : Okay?

 **Yamato** : k.

It’s not okay. I’ve finished my finals ahead of him, so I have no excuse to avoid him cuddling up beside me while he studies. I’ve never watched him read before, and it’s a whole production, his dark brows furrowed over his textbook, his pen between his teeth, his fingers playing at the hair at the back of his neck so that his sleeve falls away from those stupidly toned triceps. You’re not even supposed to use your arms in soccer.

I guess you throw the ball back in, when it goes out of bounds.

I’d like him to do that to me, to toss me around on the grass wearing those skin-tight knee socks and a thin, slippery jersey. I’d like him to throw me back in bounds, when I get lost in my head, when the fear gets so thick it feels like drowning.

Shit.

He won’t stop holding my hand, either, rubbing patterns into my palm and brushing his lips across my knuckles whenever we’re beside each other on the couch until I can’t take it anymore and I tackle him into the cushions, pin his wrists above his head and suck bruises onto the backs of his arms. And he lets me, fingers squeezing mine when I grind down on him, arching his back and making those quiet moans in the back of his throat when I take what he offers.

It’s not okay at all.

So I volunteer to go grocery shopping while he takes his last exam and send him a document full of links to every terrible article I could find about myself. But it doesn’t work. Because of course it doesn’t. Because he’s better than me, and that’s the whole problem: the way he makes this all feel real, the way my chest seizes up when he texts me back because it feels like it could be true, like he might not care about that stuff. The way I’m smiling behind my face mask as I wait in line at the grocery store, warm and stupid, for once not even looking at the magazine racks. Not that there’s anything about me: one small mercy of a global health crisis is that it’s difficult to do anything newsworthy when you’re trapped inside.

I carry home fresh produce for the first time in what feels like forever, including two bags of lettuce to try to kick this extra weight, and more microwave noodles for Tai. I’ve gotten him pre-chopped vegetables and fruit, too, so that maybe he’ll skip a few of the godawful protein bars he halfway lives on during soccer season for some real food. Because apparently a boy sucking my dick is all I needed to go full housewife.

Not just any boy, I think.

This is not okay at all.

The apartment is unusually quiet as I wash and unload the food into our near-empty fridge, but I can hear his footsteps in his room, so he must have finished his exam. Maybe he read the articles after all. The thought makes my stomach go tight, and I can feel the anxiety entering my bloodstream like a drug, crawling ice cold through my veins. I wander over to his room nervously and think about knocking, but then the door flies open and he nearly crashes into me.

“Chi, are you-” He meets my eyes for just a second, dark and worried, and then he _is_ crashing into me, crushing his mouth into mine, knotting his hands up in the collar of my shirt. I catch his waist to steady myself; it’s wider than mine, warm and strong. He takes a step into me, and another, until my back hits the wall, his chest flush against mine so I can feel his rough breath rising in his lungs as his tongue searches my mouth. It’s the good kind of overwhelming, the There’s Only Taichi kind, but there’s something off, a hot, nervous energy dancing under every movement.

“I want you to fuck me,” he whispers into lips, so softly I almost think I’ve imagined it, but he doesn’t stop. His voice goes growly and desperate as his fingers work at the buttons on my shirt. “Fuck me like you’ve never met me. Like I’m some guy at your show, and you’re gonna break my goddamn heart.” My chest goes tight and hot.

“Yagami- fuck,” I choke out when nips at the soft of my neck and grinds ours hips together again, harder this time, and the worry in the pit of my stomach is nearly lost under the bone-aching rush of wanting him, of the idea of him wanting me that way. But he must hear something in my voice or feel something in the places our bodies are connected, something no one else has ever been able or cared enough to notice, because his eyes soften into an unspoken question, and his pressure eases off my body slightly. “You did read them,” I answer what he didn’t ask, trying not to let the pain I have no right to feel sound in my voice.

“What? No, no, I-” He’s shaking his head, the energy coiled under his skin spilling out in a rush of incomplete sentences. “I’m sorry; you don’t have to- I mean, obviously, but especially with me, especially- I, I don’t even know if you like to be the one who…” He’s talking so much, like he always does, like anyone’s asked me how I like to have sex in years. Like I could say no to anything he asked me for when he looks like this, beautiful in all the ways only he can be, his cinnamon freckles turned rosy from blushing and his too-long hair the kind of perfect mess that makes me want to knot my fingers in it and pull.

I lean forward and kiss him instead, slowly, trying to ease the restlessness in his limbs.

“I didn’t. Read them,” he concludes in an exhale, when I tip my face away from his for a breath, words coming a little slower, hands gentle on my hips, rubbing sweet and apologetic just below my shirt, but his expression is still a tortured kind of hungry I’ve never seen in his features before.

“You don’t have to do this to prove you’re bi, Chi,” I remind him softly. “Not everybody-”

“No. No, that isn’t- I just want…” He blinks his dark lashes, eyes welling up, his voice crumbling at the edges, and I can’t watch him like this anymore. I cover his mouth with mine before he can find the end of the sentence, before he can say something that isn’t “you.” And the way he melts into me, the way he makes those soft sounds in the back of his throat, I can almost pretend that is what he was about to say.

I never pictured it like this. I always imagined it’d be me begging to be fucked, letting him throw me hard into my bedroom door frame and strip me, but here I am, swirling my tongue over his warm pink nipples and tugging his jeans down his hips as he clings to my shoulders. Here he is, already leaking through his underwear under my mouth. Here he is, falling back onto his mattress, his bare legs tipping open for me, unguarded and yielding. Here I am, dizzy with how beautiful he is.

“Do you have-”

“Top drawer.” I tug my clothes off as I find a condom and lube, and I can feel the hot, prickling weight of his eyes on my back. It’s never been just us, our bodies against each other with nothing in the way, and all the ways I’m not enough for him are suddenly razor sharp and icy cold in my gut. My abdomen is going tense in a feeble attempt to mimic his toned stomach. My hands are shaking like they did the night I went out to get myself fucked for the first time, spilling beer on the club floor, hiding the evidence of the night before behind drug store makeup. And my lungs are seizing up, because it should be better for him, it should be perfect and painless and everything it wasn’t for me, but I’m too broken for that, too fucked up not to fuck him up too, if I touch him too much.

But then his fingers catch mine, and they’re so strong and so eager, as they tug me back towards bed, and his body’s so soft, when I slip between his legs, his cock so hard against me as I pull his knees over my shoulders and brush my lips over the inside of his thigh, over the same spot I’ve watched his soccer shorts slip a thousand times. And his mouth is so sure, his tongue so hot and sweet against mine when he sweeps it through me hard and deep. And I feel my fingers cupping his jaw, and I hear myself saying the things I wish had been said to me, soft and careful.

“If you need to stop-”

“Like you’re gonna-mmm.” I take his cock in one hand with a confidence I didn’t know I had, and the words die in his throat as I press my thumb gently into his slit.

“I’m not gonna break your heart with a bad fuck, am I, sweetheart?” I can't bring myself to say his name like this, but based on the moan that slips from his lips, he doesn't seem to mind. “I know you're competitive, but there's no winning at this. There's no prize. It's just what feels good, so you can say _more_ or _less_ or _wait_ or _stop_ , and we can slow down until it feels good again or we can do something else.” I drop his dick as I dip the pad of my thumb into the cleft of his ass to spread a thin layer of slick liquid over the sensitive skin, and his eyes squeeze shut. “You don’t get a punch on your gay card for what you do or how fast, okay?”

“Okay,” he nods quickly, voice weak, and I turn my lips to the tanned skin of his neck, pressing in closer so his knees are pinned to his chest as I begin experimenting with the softest, pulsing pressure against him. He practically whimpers, and I can feel it in his throat, under my mouth, his fingers tangling in my hair to push me closer.

“What would you like, darling?

“More,” he begs, voice breaking, and I press just inside of him with a single finger, hot and tight and wet from the lube, pausing the moment his limbs start to tighten.

“Breathe for me, sweetheart,” I whisper, stroking gently at his cheek with my free hand, and I can hear him start to pull air into his lungs again, his legs growing heavier on my shoulders as the tension eases out of him. I kiss the soft spot behind his ear before murmuring, “perfect, baby. Less?” He shakes his head.

“More.”

We continue that way, slow and quiet, until I’m pressed up onto my elbow, watching his brow furrow each time I brush the sensitive spot I’ve found inside him, until I’m kissing the backs of his knees and sucking little bruises into the insides of his thighs as he rocks his hips up to fuck himself on my hand, three fingers deep. Until the boy who’s saved the world too many times to count, who’s won every argument we’ve ever had, arches his back and sobs “Yama, _please_.”

“What do you want, darling?” I ask, waiting for him to growl at me for coddling him again, but his eyes flutter open instead, hazy and debauched and dark brown sugar sweet.

“ _Fuck me_ , please, Yama.”

“That’s beautiful, sweetheart,” I murmur into his cheek when I’m all the way inside him, head spinning a little with how hot and tight and perfect he is, with how deep and labored and desperate he’s breathing in my ear. “Less?” He kisses me in place of answering, passionate and open-mouthed and a mess, his fingers stroking through my hair, massaging the back of my neck.

“More,” he pants when his muscles are softer again, and I start as slowly as I can, savoring the drag of his ass on my cock, finding the angle that makes him cry out the kind of pornographic sounds I’ve only ever dreamed of him making, and then harder, faster, when he asks me to, when he begs me, knotting his fists in his bedspread to leverage himself up to meet the movement of my hips. And I take him into my hand, hard and leaking, and jerk him off to the rhythm of our bodies, and he moans my name between obscenities, syllables catching, and I can already feel the tension building in my core, the buzzing, dizzying ache of it.

“Come for me, darling,” I hum in his ear, and he does, so immediately and so strong it’s like he’d only been waiting for permission, spilling out onto our chests and clenching hard on my dick inside him. I follow him over the edge, and for a moment there’s only Taichi, only the places our bodies are touching, my vision spinning with how good it is, how good he is, waves on waves of it.

It’s not until he’s in my arms, until his body is tucking into my chest like it’s the only safe place in the world and I’m not sure how it’s happened, that I can feel him shaking. And it’s not until I pull a blanket over us, until he presses his face into my neck and I can feel his tears rolling down my collarbone, and I don’t know when they started, that I realize he’s crying.

“Yagami, I-” The panic is in every organ, every pore, crushing my lungs, tearing at my gut, as I scramble for the right apology.

I’m sorry for fucking you.

I’m sorry that I loved it.

I’m sorry that I love you.

“Kari has pneumonia symptoms.” My words die in my throat, and a different kind of anxiety takes over, colder and creeping. His strong legs tangle with mine, and his arms wrap around my back, warm forehead pressing into my shoulder, like he can find a way out of his body through mine. _I just want_ to stop feeling this, I mentally complete his sentence from before. Of course. Guilt and shame bubble in my stomach, that I was so self-centered, that I was so arrogant to even pretend...

“Taichi...” I try to hold him the way I always want to be held when I’m feeling too much: one arm around his waist and the other across his shoulders, brushing my fingertips over his scalp at the back of his neck, and he stills against me.

“They won’t have the test results for at least three days, and they’re not even that accurate, and I can’t even go see her because I could bring it there with me or back here to you, and…”

“I’m so sorry.”

“I hate this,” he sobs into my skin, already wet from his tears, “staying inside and doing nothing. I feel like such a fucking coward.” I press my face into the top of his head, like I can soak up the hurt in his voice.

“You’re not a coward, Chi. You’re doing the right thing.”

“TK kissed her,” he adds suddenly. I blink.

“What?”

“The second she started having symptoms,” he’s still crying, taking sharp breaths between tears that break his sentences into fragments. “In case they’d try to make him leave.” I don’t think I’ve ever seen him like this, helpless and raw.

“That’s…”

“Really, really stupid,” he finishes sharply. “I know. I told them. Yelled at them, before you got home.” There’s a catch under his voice, though.

“I was going to say,” I suggest gently, “that it sounds like something you would do if you were him.”

“It’s exactly what I would have done,” he chokes out, half a laugh, half a sob, nuzzling his face into my skin like a cat. “God, I’m so fucked, Yama. I keep wishing it were a monster, and that’s so fucking selfish, but I could do something about a monster, you know? I could do really, really stupid things and help someone.”

“You’re helping me,” I say without thinking, and heat rushes up the back of my neck. “I don’t mean because of the-”

“Fucking?” he suggests, and I can hear the trace of a smile through his tears before his voice goes serious again. “It would be okay, if it were helping. Make me feel less like a pity lay.” I stiffen, waiting for a joke that doesn’t come.

“You’re kidding.” He shifts a little uncomfortably, eyes darting up to my face.

“I mean, if supermodel artists aren’t your type, I doubt weepy, impulsive soccer players are.” His eyes are pink and swollen, but they still crinkle at the edges when he smiles. “But it does help a little that you’re blushing about it,” he admits.

“I’m not-”

“You are,” he smiles again, and it makes my face burn hotter. “I’m just,” his brows fall back into a knot, “really glad that it was you. That it’s been you, these last few weeks; I know it probably wasn’t anything like this for you, and I know I’m not the kind of guy you’d go out with normally.”

“You don’t want to be the kind of guy I’d normally go out with, Chi,” I answer quietly. “I don’t understand why you’re so hung up on some photo on-”

“Because he was way smarter and better looking than me, okay?” He looks frustrated, like it was obvious. “And so are you, so why would I think you’d want any of this with me?” A muddled rush of emotions shoots through my chest, and I sit up, dropping my arms from him, like he’s a live wire, like the pain will stop if I let go.

“Maybe because I just fucked you?” I snap, heart pounding in my gut. “Jesus, Tai, I know you think I’m a slut, but I don’t just do this as a favor to all my old friends, okay?” He shifts onto his back quietly, perfect waist brushing my hip, and my eyes burn. When did he stop tackling me to the ground for saying stuff like that?

“I don’t,” he disagrees softly, his eyes sympathetic, like he’s not surprised by the outburst. “Think you’re a slut. You’re the only one who uses that word.” It stings, that he’s right, that I’m so predictable, like I stayed in the fifth grade while he grew up.

“You think I sleep around too much,” I say to my knees, my body still tense.

“I think,” he corrects gently, his fingertips lighting on my back, tracing soft patterns on my skin, “that sometimes you might sleep around more than you actually want to. And sometimes I worry that I’m one of the more-than-you-want-to’s.” My eyes burn again, throat tightening.

“You would know if I didn’t want to, Yagami.” He stays quiet, but his arms reach gently around my waist, and I let him pull me back down into the mattress, tucking my face into the crook of his neck as apologetically as I can. “I’m sorry. I… I just thought it went without saying, but you’re, like, stupid beautiful, okay? And smarter than me, too; I only sound smart because I’m such a pretentious bitch about everything. You’ll be able to date whoever you want when things are back to normal, way better guys than me.” The muscles in his neck tighten, then release, like he wants to say something else, but he curls into my chest again instead, eyelashes fluttering on my skin.

“You’re stupid beautiful,” he mumbles, voice sleepy, and I kiss the top of his head and ry to to ignore the rush of warmth in my chest at the idea of him thinking I’m prettier or smarter or more anything than he is.

Instead, I picture things back to normal. I picture him fucking whoever he wants. I picture him coming apart under someone else’s hands. I picture him curled up in their arms, telling them they’re beautiful.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Official Feels Warning, folks; it's a backstory chapter, and I'm very anxious about it.
> 
> CW: Homophobia, Abuse

The next several days pass in a blur of Tai’s anxious tears and Other Bodily Fluids. Takeru sends us We Are Still Alive Updates every few hours because apparently being whipped by Yagami’s runs in the family, and I’m impressed to find that Taichi seems to take this as a comfort rather than a threat. Still, he’s cycling between panicking over the still-not-here test results and begging me to fuck him senseless, the number of places I haven’t seen him come decreasing at a seemingly exponential rate, and it’s all I can do to try to make sure we both eat and sleep occasionally in between.

My dick is in his mouth when the call finally comes, his bare knees on our bathroom floor because I’d been attempting to brush my teeth when he put his fingers on my hips from behind and leaned us both into the sink, when he put his lips to the back of my neck and whispered “fuck my face?” in a voice that should be illegal. I’m wondering if he’ll have bruises on his legs after, and the thought is crashing down through my body, sweet and hot. My fingers are knotted in his hair, his strong hands gripping my ass as I thrust into him, and the sound of the ringtone startles him forward, pushing me into his throat.

“Fuck, Yagami,” I moan inarticulately as I spill into the tight ring of muscle. And then his mouth is gone, and I can see him swallowing frantically as he scrambles for his phone, his lips swollen and wet. It makes me want to tackle him to the ground and suck him off with his back arching on the cold tile.

Except I haven’t done that yet. Sucked him off. He keeps finishing himself before I have a chance to try, and I haven’t asked about it because I’m not even sure that he wants me to. I’m not sure he wants to fuck me at all. Maybe it feels too dirty, the idea of being inside of me, maybe he’s waiting for someone less used.

“Hello? Y-Yeah, I’m fine, I was just…” He drifts off vaguely, apparently unable to formulate a coherent reason to be out of breath that isn’t  _ on my knees, deepthroating my roommate _ . His forehead lands on my thigh, and his free hand finds mine, weaving our fingers together, and it makes my stomach go tight and warm, the way it’s been doing all week. I drop my other hand back into his hair, tracing soft circles against his scalp. “Yeah? Well, how reliable do they think that is? Okay. Can I talk to her?

“Hi Kar, how’re you feeling?” I rub my thumb across his knuckles, and he squeezes my hand harder, and I know it will hurt worse later, but I imagine that this is all real. I imagine that my boyfriend is on the phone with his sister. I imagine that he’s holding my hand because it reminds him that at least one person he loves is safe. I imagine that person is me. “I’m okay. I know; I know; Yama’s keeping me in line.” I feel him grin against me, and then he holds the phone up to my face. “Tell her I’m staying inside.” My lips twitch into a smile. TK does this, too, fusses over me like I’m the little kid whenever I try too hard to play the older sibling.

“He’s staying inside,” I repeat obediently into the receiver. “And washing his hands and everything. You should be proud of him.”

“Thank you for taking care of him,” she answers, and I feel myself flush, feel Tai squeezing my hand again.

“I’m… doing my best,” I answer quietly, thinking about all the ways I’ve been Taking Care of him. He pulls the phone back to his ear.

“Tell TK this doesn’t mean he’s not an idiot.” There’s a pause. “Yeah, at ten.” I furrow my brow. My show is at ten tomorrow night. “Yeah, that’d be nice. See you then. Love you too.” His hand falls from mine as he hangs up, and I cover my disappointment by pulling joggers back up and turning to the mirror to wash my face. He gets to his feet, still tapping at his phone.

“Both negative, then?”

“Yeah. They think it’s just her asthma acting up with spring allergies, but they’re going to stay in the apartment another week to be safe.” The corner of his lips tugs into a half a smile. “TK’s inviting the whole gang to watch your show together.”

“Oh god.” My eyes are closed as I find a towel, but I can feel his arms slipping around my waist, his lips pressing to the back of my neck.

“Shut up, you’ll be great as usual.”

“Do you feel any better?” I ask quietly, keeping my face buried in the terrycloth for a bit longer than necessary, and he nods, the tip of his nose in the back of my hair.

“A lot. Thank you, again; I know I’ve been a nightmare the last few days.”

“I think you might be confusing nightmares and wet dreams, babe.” That’s a thing I do now: call him by little nicknames and endearments to remind myself it’s just a game whenever we drift too close to something that feels real. It would work better if he didn’t seem to like them so much, if he wasn’t blushing into my shoulder now, rubbing his thumbs over my stomach.

“That explains why you’re always in mine,” he murmurs, and my skin prickles dangerously.

“Your nightmares or your wet dreams?” I ask, arching one eyebrow. Because I’m a glutton for punishment.

“Both,” he grins and tips his head to catch my eyes in the mirror, sending a wave of something hot through my chest.

“Did you still want to watch a movie?” I try to change the subject, but his face lights up, and it’s almost worse.

“Yes! I’ll make popcorn. Get us blankets?”

I’m sorting out our pillows onto our respective ends of the couch when I catch the scent of salt and butter, and then there’s an arm around my waist, pulling us both down onto the same cushion, my body landing inelegantly in his lap. And there’s his chin on my shoulder and our ankles brushing where my sweatpants have slipped up my leg a bit. And his blanket, the one that smells like his detergent, like my own clothes after he mentioned off-hand that he’d run out of underwear and I decided that my quarantine laundry fantasy was somehow less humiliating than the amount of time I was going to spend thinking about the single layer of fabric between me and his crotch. 

“Okay?” he checks, like my nerve endings aren’t buzzing everywhere we’re touching, like the hot something isn’t back in my chest.

“Sure,” I answer like I don’t care. It shouldn’t feel like this. I’ve fucked him. I’ve just fucked his mouth, but it never fades, with him, and this is different. It isn’t foreplay or aftercare or a distraction from test results. It’s just his body heat mingling with mine through the worn-soft cotton of his pajamas, just his fingers interlaced with mine, warmer and softer than mine ever are, just closeness for the sake of closeness.

A text pings twenty minutes into the movie that I’ve heard exactly none of the words to under the deafening roar of his chest against my back, and he hits pause so I can fish my phone out of my pocket. I can already feel him tensing up, assuming it’s my manager, but the number isn’t in my contacts.

**Unknown Caller:** Your brother just tested negative for virus if you want to call him.

I frown, trying to imagine who would know but think I might not. “Did Mimi,” I start, but that doesn’t fit. Mimi texts me things I already know about eight times a week, but she’d never call TK “your brother,” and she’d never send a message without at least one word in all caps. I feel his chin shifting on my shoulder just as a second text arrives: TK’s cell number.

It hits harder than I ever expected it to. I’m dizzy and cold all at once, nausea rolling in my gut.

“Why would- whoa,” Tai interrupts himself when the phone slips from my fingers.

“Chi.” I can barely get his name out, there’s no way I can make it to “don’t.” I’m not loud enough, anyway; he’s already got the device in his hand, brows knotted.

“Who the hell would be sending you Takeru’s phone number?”

“I don’t know, Tai,” I lie too quickly, and I can see the pieces clicking into place behind his eyes, and he’s louder, suddenly, his whole body shaking slightly against mine, and I don’t want to do this. I want to go back thirty seconds and ignore the sound of my phone. As if everything hadn't already gone to shit.

“What the actual fuck is wrong with him? Does he honestly think that everyone else is as big of a piece of shit as he is?” My jaw is so tense it’s aching, but I put my palm over the screen in his and twist around in his arms, letting my lips brush his cheekbone.

“It doesn’t matter, okay? C’mon,” I find the collar of his tee shirt and tug him closer as I coax the phone from his fingers and toss it to the floor. I can undo this, at least for one of us. “Let’s just relax; you didn’t even get off before.”

“How does he even know, Yamato?” I shake my head as I dip my mouth to his neck, like I can’t feel the low hum of anger building up under my hands, like he won’t be able to feel the way they’re trembling against his waist, his hips, the front of his pajamas. I close my eyes and focus on leveling out my voice, on relaxing my body into his.

“Did you want to come in my throat, too, love?” He catches my fingers sharply, up off his thighs, where they’d been drifting below the hem of his cotton shorts.

“Fuck, Yamato, don’t do that,” Tai snaps, brown sugar eyes flashing with emotion, and it stings worse than I have any right to feel, shame bubbling in my chest, aching in my bones, even before the thoughts I’d been holding at bay start to rush through me in earnest. 

_ He thinks I don’t have TK’s phone number. He thinks he’s doing me a favor. _

“Why does he know?” It’s Tai’s voice again, still angry. And he should be. 

_ This is why he doesn’t want to be inside me. _

“Do what?” I tip my head into Tai’s shoulder to blink back the burning moisture welling up in my eyes, to slow the racing of my thoughts, but he doesn’t have to read the magazines to know how easy I am. He doesn’t have to see the photos to know that I don’t belong here in his lap, playing house with him like it could be real.

_ He thinks I miss him after everything that happened. He thinks I care what he thinks. _

Tai’s hand lands in my hair whisper soft, like his voice when he speaks again. I don't remember when the anger drained from his body, but it's definitely gone, his arms around me gentle. I want to say I'm sorry that it's me, that Hikari has the better Takaishi-Ishida and he's stuck in here with the first draft.

_ This is why this can’t be real. Because he thinks you’re a slut. _

“Pretend that you’re not upset. Try to get me to do stuff you don’t actually want.”

_ And I do. Miss him. _

“You wanted to be fucked when you were upset,” I argue, but my voice wavers so badly I wish I hadn’t said anything.

_ And I am. A slut. _

“Yeah, but you don’t.” It’s embarrassing how sure he sounds, even more embarrassing that he’s right, that his thumb catches a tear when he takes my face in his hands to meet my eyes. “I’m sorry; I wasn’t upset, okay? I mean,” he pauses to swallow, “I’m really fucking angry, but not at you.” His lips are so gentle when he kisses me, barely more than a brush of his mouth on mine. I don’t think I’ve ever been kissed that way, just for the comfort of the familiar taste, no lust burning below it. “TK doesn’t know?”

“Know what?” I murmur into his lips, wet with my tears now. I don’t remember when I started crying. I should stop talking. I should stand up and walk to my room and shut the door, but my heart is racing, and I can’t get a breath in.

I know that he knows, of course. I know that he saw the blood and the bruises because it was the Yagamis’ apartment that I went to in the middle of the night five years ago. I know that he saw that first article earlier that day because Mimi sent it to the group chat with the text “OMFG HE’S SO CUTE YAMA DO WE GET TO MEET HIM???” I know that she was trying to give me back control of it all, to tell me and everyone else that they wouldn’t treat me any differently because of it.

I know that he must have gone back to my old room because I woke up mid-afternoon the next day to a pair of guitar cases and a pile of his athletic bags stuffed with my clothes. I know he must have talked to him because all my notebooks were there too, full of lyrics and chords I thought I’d never see again. I know that we had an appointment to see this apartment before the end of that day because he told me about it and three others before I snuck out to get myself fucked for the first time. I know that he was awake when I got back because I remember the tone of his voice, the gentle rhythm of it as I sobbed into his chest, locking my jaw when he asked about the new bruises.

I know all of that, and a part of me had still hoped he’d thought the two things were unrelated, that I’d just happened to be outed by a magazine cover and kicked out of the house on the same day, that I wasn’t a complete cliché.

“Yama.” He sounds tired. I should stop talking; I should leave him alone, but he's going to end this anyway, now that I'm complicated, and I’m already fucked when he does, and he’s so goddamn warm. So I knot my fingers up in his tee shirt to steady myself, to keep him close for as long as he’ll let me.

“What good does it do for both of us to have to lose our dad?” He pulls me tighter and buries his face in my hair, warm breath tickling my skin.

“I don’t know,” he murmurs, but he sounds almost relieved, like he wasn’t sure if I’d ever finish a sentence again. “I really fucking don’t, but I do know that it isn’t your responsibility to try to undo what he did for TK. And I know that you can’t, because if it were the other way around, you wouldn’t want Takeru to lie for him because it would be the same; he couldn’t hurt him without hurting you too.”

He’s so warm, when I kiss him, when he kisses me back until I’m crying too hard to find his lips anymore. When he pulls us both down onto the couch and wraps his body around mine, the same way he did that night five years ago, trembling like I was freezing even under his comforter, even wearing his too-big flannel pajamas while my blood-stained clothes soaked in his bathroom sink.

“I’m sorry,” I choke out, trying to salvage this for a little longer, heat burning in my face at the way my voice cracks. “It’s been years, and it’s just a stupid fucking text message. I shouldn’t-”

“Don’t,” he cuts me off, “fucking apologize for him. It isn’t your job to stop feeling, Yama; it’s his job to stay the fuck away from you.” It’s a physical pain, how badly I want to believe him.

I could say that's why I say it, that I just want the pain to stop. I could say that I've never felt like this, like someone wanted to take care of me, the actual me, not just the idea of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy. I could say that it's literally intoxicating, that I feel drunk on the kindness in his arms. I could say that if he's going to break my heart, it doesn't really matter into how many pieces. I could say all of that, and it would all be true, but I don't know what makes me open my mouth again, what makes me say the most pathetic thing I could imagine saying out loud to a boy who's fought actual monsters. 

“I just, when mom left with TK, I always thought,” I’m interrupted by my own tears again, my chest clenching too hard to breathe.

“Thought what?” he prompts gently when the worst of it passes.

“I thought it was okay because one of them still wanted me.” 

"Takeru still wants you," he starts, voice slow and rhythmic, his arms tightening again, so much that I have to close my eyes and picture the air coming in and out of my lungs to make it happen. "Mimi still wants you. Koushiro still wants you. Hikari still wants you. Jou still wants you. Sora still wants you." It comes in starts and stops, in slow breaths and no breath and frantic gulps for air, but the dizziness gradually starts to ease, and the tears start to slow, replaced by the kind of heavy, throbbing exhaustion that seeps into your bones after a day at the beach or getting caught in the rain.

“Seven brothers and sisters all still want you, Yama,” he whispers when I twist around into his chest, burying my aching eyes in the heat of him. Then, so soft I can barely hear it: "And I still want you. I've always wanted you, and that isn't going to change.” I make a noise I intend to be a laugh.

“Even when you find someone else to fuck you?” I feel his lips press to the top of my head before he answers.

“Always.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some FOR SERIOUS CWs this chapter: disordered eating and past sexual assault.  
> Please take care of yourselves and skip whatever you need to skip.

I’m going to be sick. I need to be sick. It’s nine thirty, fifteen minutes before sound check, and I’m back in our bathroom, alone this time, staring at myself in the mirror, trying to suck in the fat that I’ve failed to lose. My face is cartoonishly swollen, no matter how frequently I’ve iced it today, no matter how much makeup I use now, no matter how many times Taichi has pressed his lips feather-light to my eyelids and repeated that I’m beautiful.

Because that’s a thing that’s still happening for some reason, even though I was sure it would be over by the time I woke up, even though we fell asleep in a literal puddle of my snot and tears and self-pity last night, even though he had to physically restrain me from panic-sucking his dick. But if anything, the Taichi I opened my eyes to this morning was even softer than the one from last night. 

“Yagami…” He was still in his pajamas, his legs tucked up under him in the hand-me-down armchair we got from his parents, his phone in his hands. His pillow was under my head, his comforter tucked around me.

“Hey, sleeping beauty,” he smiled a little in a way that didn’t quite reach the worry in his eyes. “Tea or coffee?” And in a few minutes, I was sipping English Breakfast out of a university soccer mug and taking little bites of buttered toast and scrambled eggs, his hand warm on my knee. And when the plate was empty, I found myself in his arms again, head on his shoulder as he stroked my hair and queued up a quiet acoustic playlist from my library on the television.

“I shouldn’t have eaten that.” I don’t know why I said it out loud.

“Were you hungry?” I didn’t answer, and he kissed me, soft and slow and wandering, his mouth brushing over my jaw, skimming my cheekbones, nibbling staccato along the shapes of my brows, the corners of his lips twitching when I shifted my hip up against his just to be closer. I buried my face in his neck to avoid it, and he tucked me in further, rubbing gently at the tension in my back and shoulders. “You could cancel the show tonight, if you needed to.”

“Fuck,” I mutter as I pull my hair out of my fifth attempt at a messy bun. I need to stop thinking about it all; I need to warm up my voice and tune my guitar, but my hands are shaking. I can feel the ramen he made us for dinner heavy as a rock in my stomach, feel the food breaking down to weigh on my hips, my thighs. I can feel the memory of his hands there, too gentle, too kind.

I can’t play like this, I reason to myself as I drop to my knees in front of the toilet. I’ll end up throwing up anyway, just from the nausea. And Tai’s in his room getting the video call set up with everyone else. He won’t have to know. And suddenly my fingers are in my mouth, and I’m choking, and I think I can hear movement to my left, but I’m already heaving, clutching at the bowl as the bile burns through me.

“No, I couldn’t,” I mumbled into his chest.

“Why not? I could call your manager, tell him you lost your voice.”

“Because you’re an awful liar. And because I’m fine.”

“You’re allowed to need-”

“I said I’m fine, Yagami,” I repeated, harsher, but he didn’t even flinch, just tipped his nose into my hair, letting his breath tickle my scalp, and I squeezed my eyes shut. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he said, too gentle, too kind.

“Yama.” I straighten immediately at the sound of his voice, pained in a way that makes it clear that there isn’t a way to lie my way out of this, but I attempt it instinctively anyway. I scramble to my feet, slamming my palm down to flush the toilet and wiping my mouth with my other wrist. I’m too fast, though; my head spins dangerously, and I have to grab at the sink to steady myself.

“Sorry, I…” My vision goes blurry again, and I have to shut my eyes for a moment. “I get nervous before-” 

“You had your fingers halfway down your throat.” My mouth tastes like acid. I turn back to the mirror and fish my toothbrush from the medicine cabinet. “Yama,” he repeats my name when I ignore him.

"I literally can’t do this right now,” I answer, shaking my head, but my voice is scratchy and weaker than it should be.

"How long has this been happening?” I scrub at my mouth without responding, spit and rinse. It still hurts to breathe, but at least it doesn’t taste so bad. He’s trying to catch my eyes in the mirror, but I duck my chin to attempt another messy bun and hide the embarrassment I can feel burning in my face. “Yama.” My hair looks better this time. I tug a few waves loose in what I hope reads more artful than overdue-for-a-haircut. I feel lighter, at least, despite the pain. Because of it, maybe. “Yama, please talk to me,” he grabs my arm to spin me around, crowding in so I can’t avoid his gaze, clouded with enough hurt to make my chest go tight with guilt.

His mouth brushes mine, the same comforting kiss he gave me last night, warm and tender and perfect, and there’s a not small part of me that wants to melt into him, to let him rescue me the way he keeps trying to. To cry again, to let him murmur more too gentle, too kind words in my ear as I fall asleep. But they wouldn’t be real. None of the good things ever are, and the longer they last, the worse it is when they fall apart, when I end up breaking them, so I push him, instead, so hard he hits the opposite wall.

“Can I get two fucking minutes, Yagami? Two minutes to be a human being and not your personal goddamn sex toy?” He wilts visibly, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look small like he does right now, but I can only take so many things hurting, and his eyes hurt worse than anything else.

“What are you talking about?”

“Believe it or not, Tai, your mouth doesn’t solve every one of the world’s problems, okay?” He bites his lip as he frowns.

“I’m sorry; sometimes it seems like it’s easier for you, if I-” His voice is so sincere I can feel the edges of my eyes start to burn, which reminds me that my eyes are wrecked, that I don’t have time to do my makeup again, that my manager is already going to yell at me about the weight and my eyes and now my voice, too. This was supposed to end this morning; he was supposed to leave once he saw me like that, not drag it all out even longer, give me hope after hope only to lose everything.

“Easier for me to what, Taichi? Be less of an uptight bitch if you’re blowing me?” He doesn’t say that he’s never called me that, that he’s never even thought it, but I can see it in his eyes, hear it in the calm of his voice. When did he get so fucking calm?

“Matt, I just want to talk about-”

“You can talk about whatever you want to talk about, but I have to go play a show.” I start for my room, but I barely make it to the doorway.

“I read the articles.” It stops me cold, the images I know he’s seen flashing through my mind, behind my eyelids when I squeeze them shut. I wish I hadn’t thrown up because I want it even worse now, and there’s nothing left. I’m already empty, hollowed out and raw. “This morning, before you woke up. All of them.”

“You told me you weren’t going to-”

“You told me,” he cuts me off, voice rising and breaking like a wave, “that you _slept around_.” I dig my nails into my palms until they sting, trying to will myself to stop listening, to leave. “You’ve been calling yourself a slut for weeks.”

“And what, you’re disappointed that it’s true?” It would come off more intimidating if I didn’t whisper it, if I didn't sound so fucking terrified to hear him say it.

“I’m  _ disappointed _ , Yamato, that you didn’t think to mention that half those guys should be fucking arrested." I’m not ready for it, for the horrible, hopeful twinge in my chest. "I'm _disappointed_ that you acted like my big takeaway from those photos was going to be that you'd had too much sex and not that you'd been raped and felt like it wasn't safe to tell me.” My eyes flutter open, and I watch my tears splash on the hardwood under my feet, scrambling to find an edge for my voice again.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Yagami. You’re gay for fifteen minutes, and you think you can-”

“You’re fucking unconscious in some of those photos, Ishida,” he half-shouts over me, but I’m still facing the hall, like my shoulders can block him out, “You’re wasted in all of them. What the fuck would you call it, if you saw me like that?” I shake my head to try to clear it, to remind myself this isn’t real, but he's still talking, and he's so angry, angrier than I've heard him in years.

“Was it your manager who decided? That if your options are a shitty think piece about how pretentious you are by every douchebag you turn down and a hot photo with every guy you say yes to or who doesn’t take no for an answer, you might as well opt for the good press. And why not puke your guts out for good measure? So you can look _pretty_ in the crime scene photos.” I spin on him, summoning every ounce of anger I can muster to disguise the chill of shame in my gut.

“Maybe I just like getting fucked, Yagami. Maybe I just don't care that much about who does it and when. And maybe you don’t like that because you want me to be some kind of tragic fairytale princess so you can get off on your own messiah complex, but I’m not a fucking girl.”

“Funny enough, I noticed that when your dick was in my throat last night.” His eyes flare the way they used to when we were kids, and there’s that familiar tug in my gut, that instinct to burn everything that hurts to the ground, to say the worst thing I can find so he’ll kick the shit out of me. So he’ll touch me one last time before I lose him.

“You waited until we were both drunk to kiss me that first night; did you  _ rape me _ too?” His eyes go pink immediately, like I’ve slapped him, and I regret it immediately. I can see his throat working to swallow, but he doesn’t hit me. He just goes still.

“I don’t think that’s my call,” he answers, voice low, “but I tried to ask, before we did anything, and I really hope that you felt like you could say no if you wanted to because I genuinely never wanted to do anything you didn’t want too.” It’s the perfect answer. Because of course it is. Because he's perfect, and I'm a piece of shit. I force myself to roll my eyes.

“God, why do you have to make everything so fucking serious?” There are tears on his face now, his jaw trembling.

“Because I love you, Yama, and it’s like no matter what I do, I end up having to watch you destroy yourself for people who don’t deserve a single part of you.” It hurts so badly I barely hear the end of the sentence.

“No. No, you don’t, Taichi.” I can’t bring myself to repeat the words out loud. “You want to fuck me, just like everyone else, or you did until you realized how many people already have. And I’m going to let you do it, okay? Whatever you decide you want.” My voice breaks, and I hate it. “But I’m never worth the trouble, after that, so do us both a favor and get it over with, but don’t make me pretend you’re my boyfriend, because you’re not.”

“Yeah, you’ve made that pretty fucking clear,” he chokes out, tears rolling down over cinnamon sugar freckles. “But you know what? I’m not your parents, either, Ishida. I’m not your manager, and I’m not those guys. I’m stubborn and loud and stupid, and I obviously can’t mind my own business for shit, but I’m also still fucking here. No matter what you’ve said to me. No matter how many times you expected me to leave or tried to push me away. No matter that you honestly thought that I’d read those articles and come away calling you names. No matter how badly that hurts. 

“Because you’re worth all the trouble in the world to me, because you always have been. And because I get it, what it’s been like for you, that every single person who was supposed to be there has let you down, including me, plenty of times, and I can see how hard you’re working to make it not like that for me, but for once in our goddamn lives, Ishida, could you just give me the benefit of the fucking doubt?”

He’s nearly sobbing by the time he’s done, already pushing past me before I can open my mouth. I clench my jaw and hold my breath until I hear the slam of his bedroom door and the muffled crash of something being thrown across his room, and the tension aches all the way up through my temples, all the way down to the bottoms of my lungs.

I wish he’d have hit me instead.

I wish he’d have beaten me unconscious.

I don’t have time to feel this.

I don’t have time to warm up before soundcheck, either, so I have to do it between remarks from my manager about the state of my eyes and the roughness of my voice. It takes me too long; I can’t hear the notes above the noisy echoes of everything I just broke. The way I knew I would. The way I always do.

“Is the song finished, at least?” Panic brings me back to the moment long enough to construct a fragmented attempt at a sentence.

“Yes. Yes, it’s just-” I did finally scrape together a generic All In This Together Pandemic Song earlier in the week, but I don’t have the chords memorized yet. I duck off-camera to dig through my desk drawers for the notebook and quickly rip out the page, tossing it onto my laptop keyboard. “Yes.”

“Smile more, Ishida,” my manager instructs before beginning the countdown to live, and despite everything, I do. I smile, and I feel the familiar click in my brain, like I’ve pressed the off switch on the feeling part of myself, like I’m controlling my body from the outside. I haven’t done that in months, and it doesn’t feel good; it never feels good, not like Taichi feels good. But it doesn’t hurt, either, not like Taichi hurts.

So I introduce the set with a self-deprecating joke about the length of my hair, and I sing. And I don’t think about him or if he’s watching from the other room, the same way I don’t think about whether or not there was something other than alcohol in my drink that night last November. The same way I don’t think about whether my mom somehow knew even before I did, if that’s why she kept Takeru and left me.

And I don’t feel the burning in my throat or the tightness of my chest, the same way I didn’t feel the nagging, aching emptiness in my gut or the growing weakness in my limbs as the numbers on the scale crawled downward. The same way I didn’t feel the lack of oxygen in my lungs or the grinding of cold asphalt into my knees as someone who I don’t remember meeting fucked my throat behind his car after a show.

I just sing.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh god it's here folx. *anxiety sound*

For thirty minutes, I hear myself sing. I feel my fingers move over strings to play generic, sugar-coated love songs I wrote from watching movies or listening to albums by less neurotic musicians. I see myself smile and flirt with the comments that pop into the chat. And then I watch myself flip over the notes for the last song, the new one, and suddenly I’m not just watching anymore.

Because they aren’t the notes for the new song.

I flip the page back over anyway, searching for music and lyrics I know aren’t there as my chest seizes up, as all the feelings I’d shut down come humming back to life: the scent of my shampoo in my hair as he leans into my shoulder and the taste of bile in the back of my throat as he spins me around crushes his mouth to mine. The sound of my name raw and fragile on his lips as he arches his back under my hands and the feeling of the word  _ rape  _ catching sharp and thick in my throat even as I try to mock him for it. The color of his eyes in the sunlight, both of us sprawled out warm and sated on on the floor, the same place my feet are resting now, and the hurt that knots in his brow every time I try to give him a way out of this, of me.

And the shapes of the wrong words on this sheet of paper. The sad ones. The ones he said he wanted to hear anyway, as long as they were true, as long as they were part of me. Right before he told me I was beautiful, like it was easy to say, like it was obvious. Right before I kissed him on the faded carpet.

I don’t see it, whatever it is he sees. I don’t understand what would make him choose someone so broken over everyone or anyone he could have instead. I don’t even know if he’s still watching, if he shut his computer or left the apartment. I don’t know if any of that matters after everything I said to him. But I remember his hand catching mine, eager and trusting and sure. I remember his lips on the top of my head, the way his breath tickled my scalp as he murmured “always,” and I remember that he didn’t ask me to see it or to understand. He only asked for the benefit of the fucking doubt.

“This is a new song that no one’s heard yet,” I clear my throat and take a sip of the water I have stashed at my feet, “not even my roommate who’s been unlucky enough to be trapped in here with me.” I wonder if I sound different, back in my body, if the people watching can hear the anxiety that’s bubbling in my stomach, see it in the trembling of my fingers as I needlessly tweak the tuning keys back and forth. I wonder if everyone else is watching but him, if I’m about to make a fool of myself in front of the only friends I have left. Family, Taichi would say. “Especially my roommate,” I correct myself, voice shaking slightly, glancing up to make eye contact with the webcam through a few loose strands of hair before finding the first chord.

“ _ I was never the hero. Maybe that’s why  
_ _ It comes so easy to play the bad guy,  
_ _ But you cheat the game too, with those goddamn eyes.  
_ _ Can't say no if my tongue's tied  
_ _ With yours _ .”

I hear his footsteps first, the familiar, confident weight of soccer player strides, speeding up with each passing second, and I brace myself for the front door to slam, for everything to fall even further apart. Instead, I glance up just in time to catch the thud of his palm on my door frame as he hurtles in from the hall, the soft bounce of his hair from the impact.

In my head, I can hear the imagined voice of my manager, screaming at me to Play To The Fucking Camera, Ishida, but I don’t. I play to the boy in my doorway, the one who still wins every argument we ever have, whose body is tense the same way it gets when he’s staring down a monster or lining up for a goal, and I wonder faintly which one he thinks I am. I don’t watch the screen to make sure my face doesn’t look fat from this angle. I watch his eyes, the ones I still can’t ever really say no to, pink at the edges from the tears I put there, cloudy with emotions I can’t place, and I hardly remember the show until I’m singing the last note of the final chorus.

“ _ And I know we’re just playing pretend,  
_ _ Know I’ll be in pieces by the weekend,  
_ _ But I’ll make believe forever for you;  
_ __ I’ll be glittery, magic, see-through. ”

I must say something to close out the set. I must thank the sponsors and make one last joke, because I can feel my mouth moving, but I’m still not looking at the computer. I’m looking at him, at his bottom lip, caught in his teeth, at the movement of his hips under his jeans as he takes slow, quiet steps towards me. I’m still watching him when I find the keyboard with one hand to stop the stream, when I very nearly shove my guitar off my shoulder to the ground. I’m still watching him when he’s two feet away, and the air’s too thin to breathe, like he’s sucked all the oxygen out of the room.

“Yagami, I,” I finally start to stammer out, voice weak and scratchy, but his hands have already found my jaw and pulled my mouth to his, hot and sweet and sure, and his body is already crowded over mine, one warm, strong thigh slotted between my knees. And I’m already arching my back up into the heat of his chest, into the familiar taste of his tongue on mine, and my fingers are already knotted up in the bottom of his tee shirt, dragging him closer, anchoring us together.

“I never wanted it to be pretend,” he breathes damp and heavy into my lips, and I’m trembling as I shake my head, our foreheads brushing.

“Me neither.” His jaw tips forward again, and we’re only kissing, but there’s something about the way he’s clutching my face to his almost possessively, the way he brings one knee up to the outside of my hip, pinning me to the bed under his weight like I might slip away, the way lips are pressing into mine fervent and hurried, like he’s running out of time, that feels more intimate than anything else we’ve done, more true.

I nearly panic, when he leans back slightly, my hands tangling further in the soft cotton of his shirt like I can keep him if I just hold on tightly enough until I realize it’s only because I’m crying again, because he’s brushing tears off my cheekbones with his thumbs, capturing them against my skin with his lips, and the fear falters into guilt, tight and cold in my chest. “I’m so sorry, Chi. I’m so fucked up. I didn’t mean any of it, I just-” He kisses me again as he catches my bangs between his fingers, pushing the hair out of my face to meet my eyes with his, dark and shining.

“You. Are not. Fucked up,” he pauses between the words, like he can make me believe it if he just says it clearly enough, and I catch myself wanting to, wanting to believe whatever will make him stay. “I’m sorry, too.” I mean to laugh, but it comes out as something nearer a sob.

“You didn’t do anything wrong.” He shakes his head this time, and even with the tears running down my face, even with my eyeliner smudged into cloudy raccoon markings around my eyes the way I know it must be, I think I could stay this way forever, in the feeling of his face on mine, warm and comforting against the aching in my eyes and the pounding in my temples.

“I lied, okay?” His eyes are wet, too, dark lashes fluttering. “That first night, when I said I thought I might like guys. I thought I liked you. I knew. That I liked you. For years, ever since that first photo.” The words are spilling out of him so fast I can barely process them, tumbling into each other on his lips, still brushing mine intermittently. “I didn’t even fucking text you that day. I was so stupid jealous I didn’t even think about…” I can hear him swallow, the way it breaks up his breath, coming too fast, too shallow. “I just panicked and locked myself in my room like a fucking kid, and then you showed up that night, and I still think about it,” his voice cracks, tears rolling down sweet tan skin, “all the time, how I could have been there, if I’d just gone over to check on you, if I hadn’t been such a self-centered dickhead.” He pauses to gasp for breath, and I brush my fingertips lightly over his temple, trying to slow him back down.

“It was still your house I went to, Chi, out of everyone. A few hours wouldn’t have changed what happened.”

“You wouldn’t have been alone when it did. And tonight was the same thing. You just needed someone to be there, and instead I brought up all this traumatic bullshit I knew you had complicated feelings about because I couldn’t handle how it made me feel.”

My stomach hurts, a mixture of leftover anxiety and fresh guilt. I want to tell him that none of it matters, that it’s my own fault for letting it all happen, for going out alone, for not being careful. I want to tell him that he’s always been the one who mattered, not me. But he has the look on his face he gets when he’s dug his heels in, the same look he’s always given me when I’ve tried to tell him something’s not worth the effort, that I’m not worth the effort, the same look that’s caught me off balance since the very beginning. And I know how that look always ends, even if I don’t understand it.

So for once in our goddamn lives, I don't fight it.

“How does it make you feel?”

“Like absolute shit,” he grins joylessly, the crinkling around his eyes wet with tears. “Like I’m ten years old again, and I can’t tell the difference between angry and jealous and stupid. Like I’m eighteen, and you’re crying and won’t say why and every time I close my eyes I see you kissing a boy who isn’t me. Like I should’ve been there, at all those shows and bars and meetings with that fucking asshole, to keep you safe. Like… like it’s all my fault, isn’t it? Because I was the first one to hit you, and now you think that’s normal, for people to hurt you.”

“You were just a kid, Chi. Told you had to save the world. You were just trying to keep us all alive.”

“I don’t…” His words aren’t tumbling anymore; they’re slow, painstaking, like he’s picking each one out by hand. “I don’t know what the point of saving the world was if I couldn’t save you.” My lips twitch involuntarily.

“I told you you have a hero complex.” He breathes out a laugh.

“I told you you’re only mean when you like something.”

“Love,” I correct, so quiet I wouldn’t know if he’d heard me except that I can see it in the way his eyes flicker, in movement of his throat as he swallows. Except that I can feel it in the way his fingers tighten on the back of my neck, in the subtle shift of his leg against my hip. Except that he answers, immediately and unironically, exactly the same as he might have if I’d said it properly.

“I love you, too.” 

I don’t know how to thank him for it, how to tell him what it is for him to give me the benefit of the doubt over and over again, to grant me his trust again so effortlessly when I’ve betrayed it so many times. I don’t know how to say that I think I trust him, too, how to explain how strange it is to feel that safe with anyone.

So I kiss him, instead.

I kiss him, and he kisses me back, his lips sweet and hungry on my mouth, his hair thick and soft between my fingers. He kisses me back, and I pull him closer, his body warm and heavy between my legs, on top of me, as we tumble back onto my mattress. I pull him closer, and he runs his hands down my body, waist to hips to thighs, like he’s trying to make sure I’m still here.

“We should talk,” he murmurs into the shell of my ear, but his fingers are tugging at the buttons on my shirt. I shake my head against his shoulder before sucking hard at the soft of his neck.

“I don’t want to talk anymore.” And he makes that sound he makes, in the back of his throat, and there’s suddenly entirely too much fabric between us.

Our clothes come off slowly, in a blur of his tanned skin and strong hands, in the sharp edge of his zipper in my fingers and the shudder at the base of my spine when he dips his head to mouth at me through my underwear, in the drag of damp cotton against sensitive skin. And it’s all different now, because it’s real, and it’s all exactly the same, because it always was.

He catches the back of my neck as I tip my hips up into his again, pressing our bodies even tighter together, and I whimper at the feeling of him bare and hard against me, of his precum smearing on my stomach, at the ache of how badly I want more of him.

“God, you’re beautiful,” he breathes into my lips, voice taut with the same desperate hunger I can feel low in my gut. “How can I make you feel good, sweetheart?” A wave of fear hits me, itchy and cold on my skin, when I remember what it is that would make me feel good, what I haven't been able to bring myself to ask him for. He must feel it, too, because his hold starts to soften, but I grip his shoulders and push back up into his mouth, tasting him deep and full until I feel his groan on my tongue.

“Fuck me,” I blurt out against his lips, my eyes still clamped shut, face flushing with heat. I add blurting and blushing about sex to my running list of things I didn't know that I did. That I didn't do, before this. Before him.

“Yama, look at me.” I feel the clawing, cold panic in my lungs, but I do what he says, waiting for the disgust to show in his eyes, for his hands to drop off my waist, but he's just searching me with his eyes again. “You promise that’s really what you want?”

“I understand, if you don’t want to-”

“That’s definitely not what I’m asking.” My chest is tight again, but not cold.

“I promise.” He still moves slowly at first, like he’s waiting for my body to tense up, hands gentle and deliberate as he guides my hips around to face the mattress, lips light and soft as he kisses the backs of my thighs. But there’s no mistaking this for anything else, no confusing the drunken groping my body’s used to with his warm, careful touch. “Chi,” I beg again, when I can’t take it anymore, “please.”

“Side table?” he guesses.

“Yeah.” I shift down to my elbows as he rifles through the top drawer, heat crawling up the back of my neck again at the thought of what else I keep in there, and then he’s kissing the small of my back, palms moving over my waist, my legs, my cock, nudging gently at my knees to coax me wider.

The pad of his thumb brushes me first, and I can feel my knees shaking even pressed firmly into the mattress as they are.

“You're so fucking gorgeous,” he breathes as he circles my hole, excruciatingly soft, and then his lips brush my skin, a few inches to the left, and I'm practically mewling, twisting my face in my sheets as I whine. “Less?” he suggests.

“More."

“Is this okay?” he confirms, swiping his tongue tentatively across my skin, a half inch closer to where my whole body is aching for him to be, and the breath from his nose tickles the moist skin, and I want to yell at him for asking such a stupid question.

“Fuck. Yes, very. Okay,” I stammer out instead, and he tips his head to lap softly at my hole, and then I’m the most okay I’ve been in years, his mouth white hot and maple sugar sweet on me, inside of me, his stubble scratching my skin as he coaxes my body open for his. And I’m knotting my fingers in my comforter, whining his name between obscenities, wondering if I could come just from this, from the gentle rhythm he’s found inside of me. “Please,” I beg when it’s all too much, how badly I want more of him, “I just want to be yours, baby,” and I feel him groan as much as I hear it.

“You are, Yama,” he whispers into the small of my back, voice hoarse. “You're mine for as long as you want to be.” And then he’s pressing lube-slicked fingers into me, slow but deep, reaching further than he could with his mouth. “And I’m all yours. Always.” He’s so careful it should be frustrating, but it isn’t. It’s a lump in my throat that grows each time he asks if I’m okay, if it’s too much. It’s a comfortable kind of warmth that starts in my spine, where he’s pressing soft kisses and whispering sweet words into my skin. And they don’t fade, when he finds the angle that makes me choke on his name, when the other warmth, the burning, aching kind, builds up in my abdomen. They only amplify it, amplify him.

He presses his face into the back of my neck as he pushes into me, so he’s surrounding as well as filling me, and it doesn’t feel like something new so much as like this was always how we were supposed to be, tangled up and tied together, anchoring each other, like the thing we’ve been chasing since that first jogress so many years ago. And it only builds, when he starts to move, when he’s gasping my name and tugging at my hair to leverage himself deeper, when I’m meeting him thrust for thrust and still begging him to fuck me harder, when he does, moaning in my ear, waves of pleasure echoing through my hips.

“Taichi, I-” I’m not used to sex feeling like this, like being cared for, like being seen and being wanted anyway, the way it’s felt every time with him, the way I was too afraid to admit that it felt.

“I love you,” I finally find the words a moment before I finish, and then I’m sobbing at the intensity of it, spilling over the hand he’s wrapped around me, clenching down on his cock inside me, and his body is tight and shuddering, his hands gripping at me like he’s feeling the same thing I am, drowning but still breathing, burning but still whole.

“I love you,” he repeats into the nape of my neck when he finds his voice again. “I love you,” he whispers into my jaw as he nuzzles his face into my skin. “I love you,” he murmurs into the top of my head when he has me tangled up with him under my covers, my head on his shoulder.

And I believe him.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my goodness it's finally here. Sorry, folks, I got thrown off my groove by American election stress and it took a hot second to recover.

My eyes are already burning, like my body knew his was gone even before I was conscious. My stomach is already tight and cold, like it can sense the empty space behind me even before I let my fingers drift back over the sheets, even before they start to tremble on the cool, soft cotton. My skin is already aching everywhere he touched me, my throat already knotting up around the sweet, suffocating scent of him on my pillow.

_Never worth the trouble after._

So I feel a special kind of pathetic when I hear his voice, muffled from the other room, and another, higher than his. A video call, I think, heat crawling up the back of my neck, but it only takes a moment for the fear to rush back in a different shade as I try to conjure a single non-catastrophic reason for a video call this early in the morning.

Kari is sick after all, I think as I scramble out from under the comforter, trying not to notice the way my ass aches gently at the sudden movement. TK is sick after all, I correct myself as I throw my bedroom door open, louder than I mean to. They’re both sick, and they’re both idiots, I decide as I round the corner into the living room, too fast, very nearly slamming into a sweet-smelling blur of pink hair, but she only squeals and throws her arms around my neck.

“Oh my god, Yama, stop it, you’re wearing his fucking pajamas?”

“Not a girl, Chi,” I reminded him when he brought the worn soccer sweatshirt and plaid boxer shorts back with him after brushing his teeth last night. My voice was stern, like he couldn’t see the way my eyes were brushing down the length of his body. His knees wobbled a little, as though he was as fucked out as I felt, and I could feel my tongue swell hungrily. He breathed a laugh as he tossed the clothes into my lap, slipping back under the covers and wrapping me up in his arms.

“Call me crazy,” he murmured into my mouth as he nudged a knee between my legs, planting his wrists on either side of my shoulders so he hovered above me, the same smug smile on his lips he used to get when he’d pinned me in a fight. I used to think about how they’d taste back then, salty with dust and sweat, hot with anger, “but I feel like refusing to wear your boyfriend’s comfy clothes is a weirdly heteronormative, patriarchal hill to die on for a guy who makes nail polish and eyeliner look so,” he interrupted himself to kiss me, and he wasn’t angry, but he was still hot, and sharp and sweet and minty from his mouthwash. “Fucking.” He took my face in his hands and pulsed his tongue deep in my mouth, as if to demonstrate, and the unexpected combination of Taichi’s voice with gender theory and dirty talk coaxed an embarrassingly uninhibited whine from my throat. “Good,” he finished through a smile, lips brushing playfully light against mine, and my chest did the tight, warm thing.

“Well, I guess it is different,” I conceded, raising an eyebrow like I wasn’t blushing, like he didn’t have me melty and stupid under his mouth, “if they’re my boyfriend’s,” and he flushed all the way up to the tips of his ears when he realized what he’d said.

So I am, in point of fact, wearing his fucking pajamas.

“What the actual fuck are you doing here, Mimi?”

“I’ve missed you, too, Yamato,” she corrects, pulling back to meet my eyes. I haven’t been this close to anyone other than Tai in months, and it’s overwhelming, the sound and sight and feel of it all, the unpixelated edges of her face, the warmth of her breath on my face. I flush as I think of the eyeliner that must be streaked with tears and sleep, the tangled half-knot of hair that I can feel heavy and messy at the back of my head, the boxers that aren’t mine hanging loose on my hips.

“Mimi.” His voice is low, and I can feel it all the way through my body, a warm, pleasant kind of ache in my muscles. “I’m sorry; I was trying to let you sleep.” Mimi’s arms drop from around me so I can see him: the broad shoulders that curled around mine as I fell asleep, the gentle hands that crept up under his own clothes on my body to trace my stomach, my chest, the bare feet that teased the soles of mine, like there wasn’t an inch of me he didn’t want. The brown eyes that locked with mine like there was nothing else in the world he wanted to see. He’s still looking at me that way.

“Did they- Are Hikari and Takeru-”

“Everyone’s fine,” he answers before I can finish stammering my way through the question because apparently that’s just a thing that I do now, stammer and blush and otherwise fall apart for him, but there’s an edge of anxiety under the words.

“We tried calling last night, but apparently you two were _otherwise occupied_ ,” Mimi practically trills, and my chest seizes up again at the glint in her eye. “I literally haven’t been outside my condo in eight weeks, and we didn’t want you to find out on Twitter or something, you know?”

“We,” I echo weakly.

“Fucking hell, Tachikawa,” Tai growls with enough venom that my shoulders tense, but she just rolls her eyes at him.

“You always baby him, Yagami, and it only makes him more nervous.” They’re both close now, and it’s exhausting to try to follow it all, the expressions and voices and words. My temple starts to pound, and I feel my breathing going shallow, the tremors returning to my fingers, even before he gives me the kind of look that normally makes my insides melt. Even before it makes the panic swell in my throat instead because Mimi is right here, and she just said that thing, otherwise occupied, and we haven’t talked about this, whether he wants anyone to know. Even before I feel his hand brush mine, and I flinch back violently from the gentle touch, my back hitting the wall behind me harder than I’d intended. Even before that makes his eyes flash with hurt and hers soften. Even before he says “Yama,” at the exact same time she murmurs, “sweetie, it’s okay,” and it feels like everyone in the world is talking at once. I squeeze my eyes shut.

“Let me make you some coffee,” Tai tries again, but his voice is so desperate I can feel it itching under my skin. “We can sit down and-”

“For the love of god, would someone please just tell me what the hell is going on?” I choke out over him. There’s a pause, and I can almost hear the looks I know they’re shooting at each other.

“So at the end of your show last night,” Mimi begins, “you said goodnight and you hit something on your keyboard, to end the stream.” I feel sick. Cold and hot and feverish. “And it totally did end, okay?” she adds quickly. “Your manager cut the stream maybe thirty seconds later.”

“No. No, I… no.” Everything is spinning. I try to count out thirty seconds in my head, but blood is pounding in my ears too fast and too loud, and I can’t remember what half a minute feels like. 

“I never wanted it to be pretend. Me neither,” Mimi offers gently, like she can read my mind. The words sound strange in her voice. “That’s where it cut.”

Tai’s saying something now, I think, but it’s like I’m underwater. I open my eyes, but he’s blurry, and the sounds he’s making aren’t translating into words. There’s heat on my shoulders: his hands, I think. Yes, his hands, because now they’re on my face, wiping at my face. Tears, that’s why he’s blurry, but I can just make out the brown of his eyes, dark and worried, and I start to hear him again. “Hey. Hey, hey, hey, breathe, okay? Slow down for me.” I don’t notice the way the air is rushing in and out of me until he says it, much, much too fast. I squeeze my eyes shut and close my mouth, holding my breath until I can’t take it, and then taking in a gasp of air and starting again. I don’t remember sitting, but I can feel the dusty hardwoods under my palms, slightly cool on my skin. “There you go; slow down. It was just a kiss, okay? It’s fine.” I shake my head.

“There’s a recording.” It isn’t really a question, but he answers anyway, hands rubbing gently at my wrists, my forearms, like I might slip away, like I’m not sobbing on my ass in the middle of our apartment, in front of Mimi. Like this isn’t everything I was afraid of.

“Of a kiss, Yama. Just a kiss. Everything’s fine.”

“Would you stop fucking saying that?” My voice cracks, because it isn’t fine. It’s everything over again only worse, because it’s him, because it’s me that did it to him. Because it’s like it’s a part of me, and I knew that, and I let him get close anyway. I let him get hurt.

“Were you trying to find someone else?” I asked in the dark, our legs tangled together, the blade of his thumb tracing lightly over the edges of my face. “Is that why you didn’t say anything?” I could just make out the flicker of pain in his eyes.

“Why would you say that?” I shrugged, dropping my eyes to the center of his chest, watching the movement of his breath in his lungs.

“You saw what happened when I was outed, and you knew how much of a trainwreck I was even before all that. I’d understand, if you’d rather be with someone less complicated, if you had the option.”

“A girl option.” 

His body was warm and strong when I tipped my forehead into his tee shirt, the same way I’d wanted to ever since he laid his sleeping bag out next to mine ten years ago so he could keep arguing with me about strategy. Ever since I pretended to listen as I watched the light of the flames dancing over shiny blue jersey and wild brown hair. 

“Maybe.”

“I may have only been gay for fifteen minutes, but I don’t think that’s how it works.” I winced, but he just relaxed into me a little, hooking his knee over mine to nudge me closer.

“I’m sorry; that was… really fucking biphobic. What I just said and what I said before.” The pad of his thumb traced a slow line across my shoulder, down my arm. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

“How did you mean it?”

“That I’m not asking you to lie or be nice about it. That it’s okay, if you’re not sure I’m worth it.” I felt him sigh through his nose, warm breath tickling my scalp.

“I was afraid I was wrong, Yama. That it was just a phase or that I was just jealous of someone being close to you in a way I couldn’t be. I was afraid I’d let you down again. And I was terrified that I wasn’t wrong, that I was falling for you and if you knew, you’d feel like you had to be with me or you might lose your home all over again.” My eyes stung.

“Oh,” I answered lamely, and it came out a little hoarse.

“I don’t understand why you assume that I-” My stomach tightened, and I shook my head against him. It was easier to talk that way, breathing him in without having to meet his eyes.

“It isn’t you, Tai. It isn’t anyone. It’s just... me. It’s easier to offer everyone the door out and have one or two stay anyway than to invite them in and watch most of them leave.”

“It’s been ten years; I’d know where the door was if I wanted it.” I swallowed hard, but my voice still shook when I answered.

“I know.”

“Those aren’t the only choices, you know,” his fingertips traced up the line of my spine, under his sweatshirt, coaxing. “Everyone and no one. Like, you could try,” his voice slowed, like he had a better chance of sneaking the idea into my head if he was quiet about it, “inviting just one person in, to start.”

“One person,” I repeated as I tipped my face back up to his.

“Yeah, or just, like, leaving a window open for him, when that’s too much?”

“I think you may have lost the thread on this metaphor, babe,” I whispered into his lips, and his hand flattened against the small of my back, pressing me closer, tongue sweeping slow through my mouth, like he was savoring the taste. “Fine,” I added after, soft and quick, like he might let it go, but he grinned, eyes bright even in the dark.

“Fine?”

“Yes. Fine, I… I can try, okay?” I stammered, soft and stupid and exhausted, and he dove for my mouth like I’d just failed to say I love you again.

“Yama.” He’s tugging my fists open where I’d been letting my nails dig into the skin, soothing the angry red with the soft of his palm.

“I’m so sorry.”

“No. No, we... you can’t.” He looks panicked, I realize, his eyes wide and anxious. The pounding in my head eases a little when I focus on that. “Yama-”

“Can’t what?”

“Um, break up with me?” His voice is higher than normal, like he’s trying to make a joke, but it crumbles at the edges. “We’ve literally only been together for like nine hours, and I spent most of them sleeping.” I blink rapidly, trying to clear my vision.

“I wasn’t _breaking up_ with you, Yagamii.” The words feel strange on my tongue. “I was apologizing for outing you to the entire internet. Which incidentally,” I add, words catching in my throat, “would be a pretty fucking good reason to break up with someone.” His expression shifts suddenly, and then his mouth is crushing into mine, chaste but burning, and my chest twinges with a strange mix of guilt and relief.

“Don’t. Do that,” he breathes against me, fear leaking slowly out of his voice. “It’s fine. I’m fine.” I shake my head, frustrated by how quickly the softness has returned to his eyes, how calm he looks.

“It’s going to be everywhere. You don’t know what that’s like.” His brow just wrinkles the way it does when he’s worried about me.

“I know. It is, already. Everywhere. And it sucks, and I’m really sorry, but I’m okay.”

“You’re not, though, Tai. Mimi can tell you; it’s one thing for a musician, you-”

“Collin Martin,” he interrupts abruptly. “Andy Brennan. Anon Hysen. Robbie Rogers.”

“Gay soccer players,” Mimi explains softly from behind him when I furrow my brow helplessly.

“Half of them are American,” he qualifies, “so they’re shit at the game, but whatever.”

“Chi…”

“It isn’t like I was going to keep it a secret, anyway.” He says it the way he says all the things he thinks are obvious that aren’t at all. “And this season’s fucked regardless, and I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to play professionally anyway. I have video interviews at some local non-profits next week; they pay almost nothing, but I figured I might as well lean into the hero complex thing, right?”

“You still should have gotten to choose how it happened.”

“We both should’ve,” he corrects gently, “but we’ll be okay.” His eyes are so warm, so sure. I nearly jump when Mimi speaks again.

“So is this literally how all your conversations go now?”

“Basically,” Tai grins up at her, and I rub at my face with my palm like I’m exhausted with them both, but I squeeze his hand.

He squeezes back.

“There is one other thing I wanted to talk to you about, Yamato,” she adds, “but the bad news is all out of the way, so I can order everyone some coffee first?”

We end up in our living room, Mimi in the armchair and Taichi and I on the couch. He’s sipping at something piled in whipped cream and sprinkles while I chew slowly at an egg white and vegetable wrap he talked me into ordering. The few guys I’ve gone out with for more than a night were never particularly affectionate, so it’s strange, the ease with which he puts an arm around my shoulders, stranger still how easy it is to relax into the weight, how comforting it feels.

It’s easier that it’s Mimi who’s here. Aside from a few poorly concealed smirks, she’s acting like this is all completely normal, and not in a Trying To Act Like This Is All Completely Normal way. She always has, from that first text five years ago. I don’t think I’ve ever thanked her for it.

“Okay, so,” she begins with a light clap of her hands to her knees, “a little bird may have mentioned to me that we don’t get on with our manager so well.” Tai is studying his own breakfast sandwich too carefully to be convincing when I look over at him.

I glance between them, and for a moment, I imagine the two of them trading gossip online, swapping stories about my every neurosis, giggling and pitying and staging an intervention. For a moment, it clogs in my throat, and I can’t breathe again, can’t think straight.

And then he looks up at me, eyes soft and apologetic, and I remember that I promised him a window. I swallow hard.

“Did you talk to her about-”

“I only told her I didn’t like your manager,” he answers before I finish, shaking his head. “I didn’t know about any of this either.” My pulse slows a bit.

“I believe his exact words were Skeezy Dickhead,” Mimi chimes in, “which, no offense, wasn’t exactly news based on literally everything about the way he’s handled your press the last four years. I didn’t know anything about this,” she nods at us, “until last night. I mean, aside from the fact that you two have been all over each other since you were ten years old. But it just so happens, my company had already been putting out feelers to a few different agencies, looking to acquire a few solo contracts.” I look back at her, frowning.

“You’re in ecommerce, Mimi.”

“And it’s going so well,” she raises an index finger, “that we’re diversifying. We bought out a little indie record company last quarter, smaller than who your contract is with right now, of course, but I think you’ll find,” she flips over a stack of papers I hadn’t noticed on our coffee table, “that our offer is still competitive, and grants you increased artistic control as well as publicity and merchandising through our tie-in fashion line, which you would help create and model.” I blink.

“You came here to… I have a contract already.”

“Which we would buy out for you. That’s in there as well.” She gestures at the contract with her soy latte. I bite my lip and search her face.

“Why would you want me?” She all but rolls her eyes.

“Because you’re a great musician, and your style is a perfect fit for the line we want to do.”

“And this has nothing to do with the fact that I just blew up my whole career last night?” She quirks an eyebrow reproachfully, breaking her even, business woman clip.

“Yamato, I’ve known you long enough to know you wouldn’t for a second consider a deal that relied in any way on a friend genuinely caring about you. And I respect that,” she adds before I have the chance to answer the sting of it with something stupid and mean, “even if it is incredibly inconvenient, because it’s the exact reason I refused to take a penny of my parents money to start this company. I wouldn’t even let them cosign on a loan.

“So yeah, as a friend, I think your manager’s a piece of shit, but I’ve always thought that. I’m here today because I can look you in the eyes and guarantee you this would be the right move even if I’d never met you before in my life.” She does look me in the eyes now. They’re different from Tai’s: sharp and self-assured to his soft but stubborn, but very nearly as awful to take. “I’m a PR nightmare, Mimi.” She shakes her head.

“Last night was a regular, empathetic human’s nightmare for sure, and I don't want to make light of that, but it was definitely not a PR nightmare.” I feel my brows knotting, and she bites her tongue thoughtfully, reaching for her phone. “Here’s what happens if you put your name in the shopping end of a search engine right now.” She passes the device to me, and I look down nervously.

A sea of tee shirts greets me, the most popular prints apparently a still of my face as I’m singing to Taichi off-camera with the text GET YOURSELF A MAN WHO LOOKS AT YOU LIKE YAMATO LOOKS AT TAICHI or text-only I NEVER WANTED IT TO BE PRETEND. ME NEITHER. I swallow hard, the guilt-ridden panic rising in my throat again, but I can feel Tai’s smile when his cheek lands on my shoulder.

“Well I know what literally everyone I know is getting for their birthday this year.”

“To be clear, we would not be selling any of those shirts,” Mimi adds, “and this plan was in the works before last night. Ren - they would be your manager - is nonbinary and is really excited about the possibility of launching with an openly gay artist, but they asked me to emphasize that our interest isn’t about the timing or capitalizing on your personal life. It just makes sense to get all the big press out of the way so we can redirect that momentum onto your work.”

“Mimi, I…”

It must have been around three in the morning when I startled awake, startling for a moment at the warm arms around me.

“Yama,” he whispered, voice hazy with sleep, rubbing his palm over my hip, and tears rushed to my eyes as the details of the dream came flooding into focus.

“Did he hurt you?” I rasped out before I could stop myself. His nose nuzzled into the nape of my neck.

“You were just having a nightmare.” I shook my head before choking out the words that had caught in my throat a thousand times in the last five years.

“Did he hurt you, when you went to get my things?”

“What?” he murmured. “No, of course not.” He pulled me in closer, pressing his lips to my spine, sending a rush of warmth down my back.

“Really?”

“Really. If anything, I was afraid I was going to end up having to protect him.” I blinked in the darkness.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I’ve never seen Koushiro lose it like that. Ever.” I stiffened.

“Koushiro?” I twisted around in his arms, adrenaline pounding in my chest. He looked confused.

“Yeah, they… they never told you, did they?”

“Who didn’t tell me what?” His brows knotted with worry.

“Mimi and Koushiro saw you come in that night, from Koushiro’s family’s apartment.” The panic I felt must have shown in my face, because he started scrambling immediately. “I didn’t tell them anything, Yama, I swear; they just wanted to help, and it’d taken so long for you to fall asleep, and I was so afraid he’d do something to your music. I’m sorry; I couldn’t have carried all those bags by myself, and I didn’t want you to lose anything more than you had to, but I shouldn't have-” The fear in his voice registered all at once, the way his words were pressing together too quick and short, like he was waiting for me to yell at him again.

“You think I’m angry.” His eyes softened. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re allowed to be angry.”

“No, I’m not, Chi. Not about that, okay? I just… it’s fucking embarrassing, you know?” I felt his forehead land against mine, but I squeezed my eyes shut again, hiding from his gaze, and he was quiet for a moment before he answered.

“I know you feel that way.” His breath brushed my cheek as he spoke. “But I swear to god that isn’t how any of us have ever seen it, Yama. No one feels bad for you; they just feel it for you. With you. We all went through more than our share of bullshit as it is; that day felt like… the last straw, for the universe to throw that on one of us. Especially… with everything Koushiro’s family had to work through with the adoption, I think it felt really personal for him. And you know Mimi.” I could hear a little bit of a smile in his voice as he said it. “She’s never pulled a punch in her life.”

“They both talked to him?” My eyes were welling up again, and I was so tired. He tugged at my wrist, and I fell obediently into his shoulder.

“Talk isn’t the word I’d use, but yeah.”

“He thought you and I were...”

“Yeah, it... came up.” The tears came rushing back as I imagined the things he must have said to him, the way he must have said them.

“Tai, I'm so sor-”

“Hey,” he caught the back of my head with his palm, hugging me closer. “Hey, you don't apologize for him, remember?”

“I’ve never even fucking thanked _you_ , Chi. They must think-”

“That you don’t owe any of us anything,” he cut me off quickly. “That you’ve had enough choices taken away as it is, and it’s your decision what you want to talk about and how. But they're not afraid of the hard stuff, Yama. They never were; they’re just waiting for you to tell them you’re ready.”

A warm hand squeezes my shoulder, and I realize I’m not breathing. I close my eyes as I pull oxygen into my lungs.

“You don’t have to make a decision this second,” Tai murmurs.

“Right,” Mimi nods. “The sooner the better, obvs, but definitely get some more sleep first, and if you're at all interested, I can set up a time for you and Ren to chat sometime tonight, yeah? I think I can stave your manager off until tomorrow; just stay off your email and phone. I gave Tai an extra company cell I can call you on.”

“And if I don’t…”

“Then you don’t,” she confirms with a shrug, voice more confident than I think I’ve ever felt in my life. I give Tai a meaningful look, but he just raises his eyebrows at me questioningly.

“If I don’t,” I repeat, and I can see the question finally click behind his eyes, a flicker of the same pain they held when he caught me in the bathroom.

“I mean, obviously I think you should, and as soon as you’ve gotten a few more hours of sleep, I’m going to try to argue with you until you do, and I've been told I can be pretty convincing.” He raises one eyebrow at me as he swipes his tongue through the whipped cream on his drink, and I feel a confusing, fluttery mixture of exasperation and arousal. “But it's your career, not mine, and terrible decision-making skills clearly isn’t a dealbreaker for either of us, if that’s what you’re asking.” My face burns a little, and I wonder vaguely if that’s just what I do now, if he’s knocked something loose and I’m going to spend the rest of my life blushing at everything this boy says.

“You’re an idiot.” He just smiles the crooked smile that makes my breathing go short.

“I can’t decide if you guys are the cutest or the most dysfunctional thing I’ve ever seen.”

“We can be two things,” Tai argues, and I roll my eyes like I’m not trying not to cry, like I can’t feel it all the way into my bones, the way he says “we” like it’s easy, like it’s true. Because it is. I could say that’s what makes me do it, the dizzy, drunken feeling that’s bubbling in my chest from his arm around me. I could say that it’s the smudge of whipped cream he leaves on my cheek when he kisses me, the way he laughs when I swat him away. I could say that all of it feels so impossible that everything else in the world seems simple in comparison.

But I don’t know how I do it, what makes me able to look her in the eyes and invite one more person in.

“Mimi, I… whatever happens, thank you. For everything.”

“You’re welcome,” she answers, corners of her lips twitching into a smile, “whatever happens.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who has been reading along this whole time and especially those of you sent such kind and encouraging comments! It's been really lovely to spend a bit of this crappy year dipping my toe back into writing. Happy Holidays!


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